Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told a local news outlet in Phoenix, Arizona, about the cabotage crackdown happening along the U.S.-Mexico border, and a top immigration official has confirmed an unprecedented enforcement surge.
Overdrive previously reported that Mexican drivers were finding their visas revoked at the border, and that media reports indicated some 3,200 visas had been revoked.
"Under Secretary Duffy, USDOT is leveraging data sharing with U.S. Customs and Border Protection to ensure that if a driver is caught breaking our cabotage laws, there are immediate and real consequences," a DOT spokesperson told Overdrive in early June.
Notice how DOT doesn't exactly confirm the visa revocations, which would be done by CBP, under the Department of Homeland Security, nor the number of visas revoked.
Now, speaking with 12News in Phoenix, Duffy got specific.
"What we're doing is working with Customs and Border Patrol, and we're pulling the visas of those Mexican drivers who violate our rules, and what this is about is making sure that the American companies, American drivers have these jobs and these loads," Duffy told 12News.
Duffy in his comments to 12News invoked concerns about drivers not speaking English (some 70% of English language proficiency violations happen along the border), but also concerns about economic fairness.
“If Mexican carriers are taking [U.S. loads] illegally, you’re taking jobs from a great American family," Duffy said to 12News.
CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott shed some light on their relationship with DOT.
"CBP is proud of our partnership with DOT," Scott wrote on Twitter. "When Mexican truckers violate the rules on cabotage (the transport of goods or passengers between two points within the same country by an operator that is registered, based, or licensed in a different country), they harm American truckers and trade in general."
Cabotage has always been illegal, but rarely enforced at scale. On Tuesday, Scott made it clear that things have changed.
"Homeland security includes economic security, and we are committed to enforcing the law like never before," Scott concluded.
Duffy further described the nature of cabotage enforcement, saying penalties get worse and worse until eventually the drivers won't be allowed back at all.
"They'll be flagged if they try to come across the border again. They'll be out of service for either six months or a year," Duffy said, noting that for "multiple violations, you can be taken out forever."
Asked by 12News about "delays" that could be caused by stopping the Mexican drivers, Duffy largely dismissed those concerns as he always has with "driver shortage" related talk.
[Related: Did DOT Secretary Duffy just kill trucking's 'driver shortage' narrative once and for all?]
"There can be some delays," Duffy told 12News, "but once the Mexican drivers know that we're going to enforce the rules, they're not going to game the rules anymore. They're not going to game our system. So, you can have a short-term blip in congestion, but that'll be for a short time."
The visa revocations, and Duffy defending them on the news, comes after DOT in April awarded a contract that called for creating a "predictive actuarial model that assigns an Interim Risk Rating to unrated Mexican-domiciled carriers with authorities to operate along the US-Mexico commercial border zone or to conduct long-haul international transport."
[Related: Safety ratings for all? DOT launches tech project to rate 'every motor carrier']
