Confusion over trucker visa pause, English proficiency rules may drive up costs for American companies, Mexican trucking executive warns

Confusion over the recent pause on trucker visas paired with the new, stricter English proficiency requirements may soon drive up costs for American companies. 

Earlier this year, an executive order requiring truck drivers to be proficient in English was issued, prompting some Mexican trucking companies to offer classes for their drivers to keep them on the road. On August 21st, the federal government announced that it would stop issuing work visas for commercial truck drivers immediately. This change does not affect all truck drivers entering Mexico, but it has caused confusion within the industry regarding who exactly it will affect and how.

“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X. 

Manuel Sotelo, a trucking executive in Juarez, Mexico, says that most truckers making runs from Juarez to El Paso, Texas and to New Mexico have historically not been required to have a work visa because they don’t venture any further into the United States and come right back to Mexico after making their delivery. However, truck drivers recruited by American companies to haul their goods within the United States are directly affected by the work visa change. 

‘They are ones with (visas) … so, the impact will be on American companies that have to move their merchandise about,” Sotelo said to Border Report.

“It’s a number of things, visas are pauses and the English requirement is adding to costs,” he added. “Unfortunately, what will happen is that our Mexican drivers will get stopped and deported. We are losing drivers who want to cross the border.”