Surface Transportation per driver.” Spot rates on Mexico-US lanes remain 8 % to 15 % above their baseline from mid-February, before the Middle East war, according to Uber Freight’ s third-quarter market update.
The update, released Sept. 10, found shippers stockpiling more goods at the border to better control when and how goods enter the US.
“ The shippers that leverage transload the most are standing up their own cross docks,” Houssami said.“ They’ ll do a short-term sublease and run it themselves. What they want to avoid is a shared customer facility.”
“ If a driver walks across the bridge and picks up a truck, that’ s cabotage.”
Cross-docking has been growing in Laredo for years as an alternative to direct point-to-point trucking across the border. Third-party logistics provider C. H. Robinson Worldwide, for example, opened a 400,000-square-foot cross-dock and warehouse there in 2023.
But direct trucking with Mexican B1 drivers remains the cheaper, faster option. As a result, shippers of highervalue commodities tend to prefer cross-docking, while those moving lower-value freight“ always” choose direct tractor-trailer moves or a trailer swap at a border terminal, Houssami said.“ Those shippers are prioritizing speed and transit time over cost,” he explained.
As rates climb, however, shippers look to transload as a means to control cost and risk. Houssami noted that there are no quick-and-easy alternatives to Mexico’ s B1 drivers.“ We saw quite a few shippers convert truckload to intermodal in the first half of the year,” he said.“ Most of those shifts have happened already. The shippers who could do it have already done it.”
Cabotage concerns
Enforcement of English-language proficiency requirements has played a large part in the revocations, but several thousand B1 visas have also been revoked when US inspectors uncovered evidence of Mexican B1 drivers picking up and delivering freight within the US, according to Dewart.
Those cabotage moves include delivering Mexicobound loads to Laredo in the US, rather than Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Any point-to-point pickup and delivery of goods within the US by foreign drivers is illegal, including moves between US border crossings.
“ There are Mexican drivers loading in Laredo, and that technically is cabotage,” Echo’ s Ryley said.“ If a driver walks across the bridge and picks up a truck, that’ s cabotage.”
With cabotage, enforcement often takes place at the border crossing, when Department of Homeland Security customs or immigration inspectors check where the truck has picked up and dropped off loads.
“ We live in an era of technology, and it’ s getting easier to catch people,” Dewart said.
email: bill. cassidy @ spglobal. com
US authorities have revoked more than 25,000 B1 visas from Mexican drivers since April 2025. Geoff Robins / AFP via Getty Images www. joc. com October 5, 2026 | Journal of Commerce 49