Most of the conversation in the American political world regarding Mexico is about illegal immigration, a divisive and highly partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans should put politics aside for now and focus our national resources and attention on the highly volatile and ultraviolent situation in Mexico. Mass graves of barbaric cartel victims are discovered almost daily in areas just south of our border, and there is evidence that the brutal violence and drug trade of 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 of El Paso, Texas in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The violence that the people of this city experience on a daily basis 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.

US and global indifference to the situation in Mexico is clearly evident in the 22 million tourists who visited Mexico last year. If the media were investing the kind of attention this story really deserves, this number would be considerably lower; it is a fallacy that tourist areas are safe from the cruelty of the cartel. Acapulco is a prime example of a beautiful Mexican resort town that has been transformed into a battleground for warring gangs. On January 9, 2011, police in the Benito Juárez 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 largely due to the power of the local Tijuana cartel.

Fortunately, so far, fears of the violence spilling over into the United States have largely failed to materialize. However, in recent weeks, the influence of those involved in the Mexican drug trade has expanded dramatically. We just learned that the Los Zetas cartel has expanded its drug operations into Guatemala and will almost certainly expand into the rest of Central America, if they haven’t started their operations yet.

The Zetas are not alone in expanding their criminal enterprise; Sinaloa gangs, as well as the Zetas, are actively involved in transporting cocaine from Colombia to a pseudo-headquarters in Mexico. The spread of organized crime in Central America is extremely disturbing because many of these countries already have some of the highest rates of criminal activity in the world. This anarchy undoubtedly breeds the kind of brazen and brutal behavior that the cartel needs to employ to achieve its economic motives.

The United States is not immune to cartel influence; In late April, Mexican authorities arrested ten El Paso residents in Ciudad Juárez in connection with drug trafficking. States like New Mexico, Arizona and Texas have seen an influx of violent crime as a result of the cartel. However, it is not just these border states that face the Mexican drug threat. 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. Fortunately, the extreme violence in Mexico has not spread to the United States, however…

Our politicians and media, with the exception of those in the border states, have said virtually nothing of substance regarding the danger the cartels pose to the United States and our interests abroad. We do not want our neighbor to the south to be involved in a drug war that kills more than a thousand people every month. As Americans, we are justifiably outraged when we witness a totalitarian dictator murder his own people in the streets. Yet 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 showdown with the cartels in our cities. I would argue that the cartel is so well armed and financed 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 close to home before we have an organized and powerful cartel operating in nearly every major city in America.