Mexican truckers are in the midst of legal action against the U.S. government for refusing to allow their trucks access to transport goods into the country. 

The attorney for the National Chamber of Motor Cargo Carriers (CANACAR), Jose Refugio Munoz Lopez, told Excelsior that the United States is not in compliance with the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed 20 years ago.

CANACAR claims that they have assembled a list of more than 30,000 people who have been wrongly denied access to the U.S. border for the purposes of commercial transportation. The association is seeking $30 billion in compensation.

According to EFE, Munoz also complained that the U.S. has required Mexican trucking companies to invest in improvements for the U.S. as well as cargo transfer facilities along the border between the two countries.

Munoz also said that the U.S. government indicated that it wanted to have a negotiated settlement of the matter. He is proposing a solution whereby the U.S. government recognizes it has breached the NAFTA agreement, opens U.S. roads to Mexican trucking and compensates Mexican transportation companies for the past denial of access.

This is a conflict that has been brewing for some time. An initial demand for arbitration was filed in 2009 on behalf of CANACAR, in which the association alleged that Mexican companies are unfairly burdened in trying to service cargo routes into the U.S.

"Although the United States agreed in NAFTA to phase out its moratorium against Mexican carriers, the United States has acted entirely to the contrary, singling out Mexican carriers as the sole group in the World that is prohibited from obtaining authorization to provide trucking services in the United States," the document reads.

The matter will be discussed in a meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto during a Feb. 19 meeting in Toluca.