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Mexico-US trucking rates spike on B1 visa driver loss

By Bill Cassidy

A US crackdown on trucking within the US by foreign drivers, a form of cabotage, is draining the driver pool along the US-Mexico border. The resulting shortage of Mexican B1 visa drivers available to haul direct loads to the US is tightening available northbound capacity, making cross-border trucking more complicated— and more expensive— for US importers.

Rate hikes have ranged anywhere from 30 % to 70 %, depending on the border crossing, lane and commodity, according to Troy Ryley, president of Echo Mexico, a unit of Chicago-based Echo Global Logistics.

“ Rates have settled since July, but shippers can’ t get anywhere near” the rates they paid this spring, Ryley told the Journal of Commerce in early September.

Dry-van truckload spot rates from Laredo, Texas, to Dallas, one of the heaviest corridors for truck freight, skyrocketed 57 % from January to July, hitting a monthly average of $ 4.24 per mile, about 13 % higher than contract rates in that lane, according to DAT Freight & Analytics. The Laredo – Dallas spot rate dropped 9.5 % in August to $ 3.83 per mile.

Higher fuel prices are contributing to the sharp increase in trucking costs in cross-border lanes. For the first time, diesel prices in the US are heading north of $ 6 per gallon.

“ That’ s a huge amount,” he told the Journal of Commerce in early September.“ Under the current circumstances, it’ s like a tinderbox waiting to blow [ if demand increases ], because there’ s just not enough capacity to move the loads every single day.”

That loss of capacity is forcing US importers to reconsider how they move freight inland from the largest border entry ports in Texas, especially Laredo, said Zeid Houssami, vice president of global sales at Uber Freight.

“ Shippers are moving from reliance on direct-todestination trailers to hybrid transload networks,” Houssami told the Journal of Commerce.“ Transloading is moving from being a workaround to being part of network design. Shippers who relied on B1 capacity are building cross-dock transload options into their core networks at Laredo, and for the first time, asking about the service in El Paso, which historically handled very little transload.”

Stockpiling at the border

The capacity crunch at the border is part of the larger crackdown on illegal trucking and foreign drivers operating in the US, whether they hold B1 visas or commercial driver’ s licenses. More than 25,000 B1 visas issued to Mexican drivers have been revoked by US authorities since April 2025, according to Mexican trucking association Canacar

That’ s a drop in the bucket of the total number of licensed truck drivers in the US— estimated at more than 3.5 million— but a significant percentage of cross-border drivers.

“ You see this reflected in load-to-truck ratios at the border,” Houssami said.“ Last year, for every five trailers [ or loads ] you had one driver [ or truck ]. Now, it’ s 8.5 trailers

“ It’ s like a tinderbox waiting to blow, because there’ s just not enough capacity.”

Ryley and other logistics executives don’ t expect much additional cross-border capacity, nor rates to fall much farther in the tail-end of 2026. The crackdown on B1 visas“ created a huge vacuum in driver availability,” he said.“ That hurts you on the pickup [ in Mexico ] and on the availability of equipment at the border to go north.”

Jordan Dewart, president of Redwood Mexico, part of Redwood Logistics, estimated the regulatory crackdown has removed between 30 % and 50 % of capacity formerly controlled by drivers working under temporary business visitor( B1) visas.

48 Journal of Commerce | October 5, 2026 www. joc. com