The United States government is refusing to back down in a court battle with CSL over the legitimacy of Mexican plasma donors, insisting it was right to block non-citizens from crossing the border to visit the biotech giant’s collection centres.
CSL and a group of its peers, including Grifols, have been fighting a ruling by the US customs and border protection from last year that banned Mexican citizens from entering the country to donate plasma. The companies have several collection centres along the US/Mexico border and the ban disrupts their recovery plans after plasma volumes dropped throughout the pandemic.
A centrifuge at CSL’s new plasma fractionation facility at Broadmeadows which will increase the company’s plasma processing capacity in Australia to 9 million litres a year, from 1.2 million. Credit:Eddie Jim
The companies lost their initial bid to have the ban overturned, but are appealing, with oral arguments scheduled for April 1.
In documents filed with the appeals court, US Customs and Border Protection said CSL was wrong to claim that there was a longstanding practice of letting Mexican citizens on B1 visas to enter the country to donate plasma.
Instead, the agency argues that before the pandemic Mexican citizens were entering the US without declaring that they were headed to the centres of CSL and its competitors. This fact was only discovered after COVID-19 related border closures restricted movement to “essential” travel, they said.
“Before the restrictions on non-essential travel at land ports of entry along the US-Mexico border, Mexican nationals who entered the United States to sell plasma usually did so without declaring that purpose,” the agency said.
“When they started to disclose their intent after travel was restricted, US Customs and Border Protection learned of inconsistent practice at border crossings in Texas, Arizona, and California and issued the Clarifying Guidance to rectify the inconsistency.”
However, CSL argues that it is impossible that customs did not know the Mexican nationals were crossing the border to donate plasma.
“Plaintiffs spent several million dollars on advertising, including on billboards, newspapers, local business listing, public benches, and buses that travelled throughout the border regions, all in plain view of customs officers,” the companies said in reply documents.
