Mexican truck drivers blocked the commercial border crossing at Mexicali–Calexico East for several days. The protest was directed against the revocation of B-1 visas by US authorities. On Friday, the action was expanded to the San Luis Río Colorado–Yuma crossing.
Since Sunday noon, the blockades have ended. Approximately 300 drivers withdrew their vehicles after a round of talks with authorities in Baja California was arranged. A permanent solution does not yet exist. The drivers are therefore threatening new protests if the talks produce no results.
With a B-1 visa, Mexican drivers are permitted to bring international shipments into the United States or pick them up there. However, purely domestic transportation between two points within the United States is generally not allowed. This is referred to as cabotage.
The dispute centers on exactly this distinction. According to CANACAR, individual US officials also classify certain movements with empty trailers as violations. For drivers and dispatchers, it is apparently not always clear which empty movements still qualify as international transport and which already constitute US domestic transport.
CANACAR estimates that more than 25,000 visas have been revoked along Mexico's northern border. Approximately 4,000 cases are said to have affected Baja California or the Tijuana and Mexicali region. Official figures from the US government are not available on this matter.
For logistics, this is problematic. When a driver loses his visa, he effectively becomes unavailable for cross-border operations immediately. This results in transshipments, driver changes, longer wait times, and additional costs.
Separately, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is launching a 90-day pilot program at the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge near Laredo starting September 14. Empty tractors and trailers can be cleared there from Monday to Friday starting at 07:00. However, this program has no direct connection to the visa dispute in Mexicali.