US authorities have revoked B-1 visas for roughly 25,000 Mexican truck drivers, gutting the pool of qualified operators on cross-border lanes and pushing spot rates up as much as 57% year over year on key Mexico-origin corridors.

FreightWaves data show the squeeze is supply-driven, not demand-driven, and likely to persist well into 2027, with tender rejections running two to three times higher than a year ago on major border lanes.

The crunch is sharpest at El Paso. Tender rejections there peaked at roughly 24-25% in early July and still sit near 20%, according to FreightWaves SONAR. San Diego/Otay Mesa follows at about 10%, up from 3.9% a year ago. Laredo stands near 7% after touching a low of 6.07% on Oct. 3 and rebounding to 7.78% by Oct. 10.

The national tender rejection rate moved from 5.7% to 13.8% over the same period. Border markets are tracking that broader tightening — but with outsized supply pressure.

What's driving the Mexico squeeze?

Julie Van de Kamp, who presented the SONAR analysis on the Oct. 13 FreightWaves broadcast, said: "What is driving this is Mexico — there is not so much increased demand, but there's certainly, whether short-term or whether it will be longer-term, we're seeing a lot of reports of driver shortages."

She added: "For that Mexican border, a lot of this revolves around lack of driver availability and visa revocations."

The rate data backs her up. Spot rates on the busiest corridors:

• San Diego-to-Phoenix: up 57% year over year
• Laredo-to-Dallas: up 43%
• Laredo-to-Chicago: up 35%
• El Paso-to-Dallas: up 28%

The Mexico Contract Volume Index tells the other half of the story. Volume is stable — it recovered from a sharp January drop but has not surged. Fewer drivers, not more freight, is moving the market. Van de Kamp cautioned that Mexican cross-border volume data carry a reporting lag.

Why is Canada tightening too?

The Canadian border has a different problem: freight imbalance, not driver shortage. Canadian exports remain firm, but weak northbound return freight leaves carriers without backhauls. Some now avoid certain US markets or demand premium pay.

The numbers:

• Select Canada corridor rates up 20% to 35% over the past six weeks
• Canadian rejection rate up from roughly 4% to about 5.5% year over year
• Canadian truckload volumes running above year-ago levels on SONAR's STVI index

Van de Kamp expects the Canadian rejection rate to rise further through year-end. The imbalance is also pushing some contract freight into the spot market to secure coverage, particularly in refrigerated.

What should shippers do?

The message across both borders is consistent. Demand is relatively soft, capacity is constrained, and rates are rising anyway.

For shippers and brokers on Mexican lanes, the binding constraint is driver supply. Visa revocations will not reverse quickly, so southbound capacity stays tight regardless of freight volumes. On Canadian lanes, the play is different: rejections should climb through year-end as backhaul economics worsen, and refrigerated shippers face the tightest coverage.

FreightWaves expects the tightness on both borders to continue well into 2027, with rejections holding at two to three times last year's levels on key lanes.