Borderlands Mexico: ILS boosts cross-border freight with Arizona facility
Borderlands is a weekly rundown of developments in the world of United States-Mexico cross-border trucking and trade. This week: ILS boosts cross-border freight with Arizona facility; British wire harness maker plans new facility in Mexico; RK Logistics adds free trade zone warehouse space; and Texas border agents discover $8M worth of meth in shipment from Mexico.
The International Logistics Solutions (ILS) Co. continues to invest in U.S.-Mexico trade, regardless of the ups and downs of the White House's current trade policies.
Earlier this month, ILS opened a 115,000-square-foot distribution center in Tucson, Arizona. The facility aims to serve industries that rely heavily on cross-border shipments between Mexico and the U.S., company officials said.
'Our major customers are in the automotive and aerospace industries, and some industrial materials,' Tirzo Gortary, director of the ILS distribution center in Tucson, told FreightWaves in an interview. 'We see a lot of our logistics parts either getting manufactured for or either delivered to GM, Tesla and Ford. Our customers are either customers that had manufacturing in the U.S. and in Mexico, or they could be suppliers that are outside of Mexico, outside of the U.S., that provide raw materials.'
The ILS Co., founded in 2002, is based in Tucson. The company is a logistics and supply chain management provider. In 2024, ILS' import and export departments declared over $1.7 billion in shipments entering or leaving Mexico.
In addition to aerospace and automotive, ILS serves industries such as medical, construction, oil and gas, mining, renewable energy, and Mexico's maquiladora businesses.
A maquiladora is a foreign-owned factory located near the U.S.-Mexico border that operates under a favorable duty- or tariff-free basis. The factory assembles imported goods for export, often to the U.S.
The ILS Co. is also the logistics arm of Tetakawi, one of the largest providers of outsourcing solutions to firms that have manufacturing operations in Mexico.
'Our parent company is Tetakawi, one of the largest employers in [the Mexican state of] Sonora,' Gortary said. 'They have manufacturing facilities in [the Mexican cities] of Guaymas, Empalme and Hermosillo. They work with companies that want to manufacture in Mexico or that have a contractor manufacturing in Mexico.'
Tucson is in the Arizona-Sonora trade corridor, a regional gateway for $32 billion worth of goods annually crossing between the U.S. and Mexico, according to a recent survey by the Arizona Department of Transportation.
Arizona has six commercial ports of entry along its border with Mexico, including Nogales, Lukeville, Sasabe, Douglas, San Luis and Naco.
Automotive suppliers in Sonora ship over 100,000 auto parts daily back and forth across the border with Arizona, according to The ILS Co.
Gortary said the Tucson distribution center aims to help clients by consolidating services in one facility.
'The facility is a cross-dock – it's a consolidation point, basically, for imports and exports,' Gortary said. 'For new inspections, we have on-site Mexican brokers. We have U.S. broker partners. Our customers are creating purchase orders that are coming from the U.S. manufacturers, Asian manufacturers, and they just happen to arrive in Tucson, and we just take care of all the logistics and getting them imported and into manufacturing facilities.'
Volex recently began construction of a manufacturing facility in San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
The United Kingdom-based company specializes in the manufacturing of wire harness assemblies. The plant will generate over 2,000 jobs, according to a news release.
Officials did not provide a timeline for the plant's construction. San Luis Potosi is in central Mexico, about 450 miles from Laredo, Texas.
Volex has 28 manufacturing locations and a workforce of over 14,000 employees across 25 countries. The company is a supplier to industries such as industrial technology, consumer electricals, electric vehicles, medical and automotive.
RK Logistics Group has expanded its customs bonded warehouse and foreign trade zone (FTZs) capacity at its facilities in California, Texas, Arizona, New York and Michigan.
The facilities boost RK Logistics' service offerings, with the expanded FTZs allowing businesses to defer, reduce or eliminate customs duties, streamline operations, and optimize cash flow for goods entering domestic and international markets, according to a news release.
'This expansion underscores our commitment to supporting clients in a complex global trade landscape,' Joe MacLean, CEO of RK Logistics Group, said in a statement.
RK Logistics Group, based in Fremont, California, is a 3PL that targets high-tech companies. The company has 17 facilities in five states totaling 1.7 million square feet of warehouse space.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection in South Texas recently intercepted $8.9 million in alleged methamphetamine concealed in a shipment of chayote from Mexico.
Chayote is also known as vegetable pear and is a pear-shaped squash native to Mexico, according to a news release.
On April 13 at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge in Pharr, Texas, CBP officers searched a tractor-trailer arriving from Mexico. They found packages containing 1,002 pounds of methamphetamine hidden inside the shipment.
CBP seized the narcotics and vehicle and turned the case over to Homeland Security Investigations.
The post Borderlands Mexico: ILS boosts cross-border freight with Arizona facility appeared first on FreightWaves.
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