Most of the talk in the American political world with regards to Mexico is about illegal immigration, a divisive and highly partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans should put politics aside for the time being and focus our national resources and attention on the highly volatile and ultra-violent situation in Mexico. Mass graves of the victims of barbaric cartels are being discovered almost daily in areas just south of our border, and there is evidence that the brutal violence and drug trade from the Mexican cartels is no longer unique to Mexico.

In 2010, with eight murders a day, the world’s most dangerous city was not located in the Middle East, South America or Africa; rather, it was located just miles from our border town El Paso, Texas in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The violence that the people of this city experience daily is almost incomprehensible: gang rapes, beheadings, dismemberment and brutal torture are a frequent reminder of the power of the cartel. Even more disturbing is the recent development that members of the notorious Los Zetas cartel are kidnapping men and forcing them to fight to the death in a forum similar to that of Ancient Rome.

American and global indifference toward the situation in Mexico is clearly evidenced by the 22 million tourists who visited Mexico in the past year. If the media was investing the kind of attention that this story truly deserves this number would be considerably less; it is a fallacy that the tourist areas are safe from the cruelty of the cartel. Acapulco is a prime example of a gorgeous Mexican resort city that has transformed into a battleground for the warring gangs. On January 9th, 2011 police in the Benito Juarez area of Acapulco discovered three bodies hanging from a bridge on Highway 95. Cancun and Cozumel are now a critical port of entry for the Mexican cartel’s global drug trade; Tijuana continues to be an incredibly dangerous tourist city in large part due to the power of the local Tijuana Cartel.

Luckily, up to this point, fears of spill-over violence into the United States have largely not come to fruition. However, in just recent weeks the influence of those involved in the Mexican drug trade has dramatically expanded. We have just learned that the Los Zetas cartel have expanded their drug operations to Guatemala and almost certainly will expand into the rest of Central America, if they have not already begun operations.

The Zetas are not alone in expanding their criminal enterprise; the Sinaloa gangs as well as the Zetas are actively involved in the transportation of cocaine from Columbia to a pseudo-headquarters in Mexico. Organized crime expanding into Central America is extremely unsettling because many of these countries already possess some of the highest rates of criminal activity in the world. This lawlessness undoubtedly breeds the kind of brash and brutal behavior that the cartel needs to employ in order to accomplish their economic motives.

The United States is not immune to the influence of the cartel; in late April Mexican authorities arrested ten El Paso residents in Ciudad Juarez in connection with drug trafficking. States such as New Mexico, Arizona and Texas have witnessed an influx of violent crime as a result of the cartel. Yet, it is not only these border states that face a threat from the Mexican drug menace. The Tijuana cartel has created a base of operations in Seattle and Anchorage, Alaska. Other cartels have a base in Buffalo, and Atlanta has become a major hub for cocaine trafficking. Thankfully, the extreme violence in Mexico has not extended into the United States, yet…

Our politicians and media outlets, with the exception of those in border states, have said virtually nothing of substance in regards to the danger that the cartels pose to the United States and our interests abroad. It is not to our advantage to have our neighbor to the south embroiled in a drug war that claims the lives of more than one thousand people each month. As Americans, we are justifiably outraged when we witness a totalitarian dictator murdering his own people in the streets. However, why does our collective anger rise only when citizens are murdered at the hands of their own governments?

A porous border, inadequate funding for law enforcement and a close proximity to extreme violence, is a sure recipe for a potentially devastating future clash with the cartels in our cities. I would argue that the cartel is so well-armed and funded, that with the exception of Al-Qaeda, they pose the greatest threat to our homeland since the end of the Cold War. It is my hope that we, as Americans, recognize the real danger that exists so very close to home before we have an organized and powerful cartel operating in nearly every major city in America.