An Associated Press investigation out Monday shows that Mexico’s infamous drug cartels are attempting to expand their networks in the United States, cutting out middlemen to increase profits.

Through interviews and reviewing court-documents, the AP says that the major cartels have stepped up their presence in cities throughout the United States. Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Chicago office, told the AP that the current push to consolidate control of the drug supply is “probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime.” Chicago recently named the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, as “Public Enemy No. 1,” the same title once given to Al Capone.

According to the AP, Chicago isn’t alone in seeing an upswing in cartel activity:

Border states from Texas to California have long grappled with a cartel presence. But cases involving cartel members have now emerged in the suburbs of Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Columbus, Ohio, Louisville, Ky., and rural North Carolina. Suspects have also surfaced in Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. [...]

“This is the first time we’ve been seeing it — cartels who have their operatives actually sent here,” said Richard Pearson, a lieutenant with the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department, which arrested four alleged operatives of the Zetas cartel in November in the suburb of Okolona.

Mexico’s war against drug cartels has claimed the lives of 70,000 according to some estimates — mostly civilians caught in the cross-fire or the victims of cartel executions. Three thousand cartel-related murders have taken place just since the December inauguration of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The Zetas cartel is among the most deadly and the most able to take advantage of the Mexican government’s lack of centralized control, having set up their own cell towers and other infrastructure in the process of completely replacing the government in running large areas of territory.

President Obama is due to travel to Mexico in early May and is sure to make U.S.-Mexican cooperation in clamping down on the drug trade a top priority. So far, under the Merida Initiative, a partnership between the two countries, the U.S. has spent roughly $1.6 billion to help suppress organized crime. Unfortunately, the U.S. hasn’t been doing everything possible to help that cause, forgoing prosecution of the banking giant HBSC for its role in laundering $881 million in drug money.

Policies to help end the demand for Mexican drugs and decrease the violence there have also fallen by the wayside or failed to gain support at the Federal level. A 2012 study indicated that state marijuana laws would help reduce the cartel’s profits, a policy that seems dead in the water in Obama administration. Also, the lapse of the assault-weapon ban corresponding to an increase in gun violence across Mexico. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA)’s renewed assault-weapon ban measure will not be included in the gun violence prevention package being moved forward in the Senate.

The White House on Wednesday announced that President Obama will be traveling to Latin America for the first time this term, heading for Mexico and Costa Rica in early May. The former in particular holds several challenges for the President, given Mexico’s proximity and close ties to the U.S. and the many difficulties Mexico’s new President faces. Here’s a few of the issues President Obama will have to confront during his travels:

• Border Security

  Given the domestic agenda in the United States, there’s little chance that Obama’s discussions with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto will manage to avoid the issue of immigration between the two countries. The debate in the U.S. has particularly focused on the security of the border between the U.S. and Mexico, with Republicans clamoring for more. Two GOP members of the U.S. Senate’s so-called “Gang of Eight” working on immigration toured parts of Arizona’s border on Wednesday, noting that they witnessed a woman scaling the fence between the countries. The woman was quickly apprehended, showcasing the billions of dollars already being spent on border security.

• Economic Ties

  Issues of border security aside, Presidents Obama and Pena Nieto will likely discuss migration patterns and the economic links between the two states substantially. While the U.S. is home to an estimated 12 million immigrants from Mexico, net migration from the U.S. southern neighbor fell to nearly zero in 2012, possibly due to a less than robust U.S. economy. Despite that, the U.S. and Mexico engaged in over $200 billion worth of cross-border trade in 2012. Even more of an indicator of the ties between the state of the two economies, despite remittances — money immigrants send to their native country — dropping in 2012, they still made up over $22 billion.

• Drug Trade and Violence

  Given Pena’s inheritance of former President Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, the power of Mexico’s drug cartels is sure to top the agenda of the two leaders. Over 50,000 Mexican civilians have died in the conflict, which has so far not managed to crack the hold of the cartels on many towns and cities. In Nov. 2012, the Zetas — the largest cartel in Mexico — managed to take total control of the third-largest state in the country. A general inability of the central state to provide public security exists throughout many areas, resulting in vigilantes taking over towns and arresting the police. But even when central government can provide the forces necessary to provide security, the human rights abuses they’ve been accused of perpetrating tend to outweigh the benefits of their protection for civilians.

  The United States has done its part to help along instability in Mexico. A recent study shows that when the U.S. allowed the assault weapons ban to expire, the effect was felt heavily in Mexico. As much as 16 percent of the increase in homicides in Mexico can be tied to that expiration, according to the study. In terms of direct support for the drug trade, a new study of the Custom and Border Patrol’s own data shows that Americans are involved in as much as 80 percent of the drug trafficking across the border.

(Photo: Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto speaks with President Obama)

Security forces in the Mexican government may have been cooperating to facilitate hundreds of “enforced disappearances” of citizens as part of the failing struggle to rein in drug gangs, according to a new report.

Mexico has been steeped in a conflict with drug cartels for the last six years, resulting in the death of over 50,000 Mexican civilians. During the course of that conflict, hundreds of civilians have gone missing — or “disappeared” — and are presumed to be dead. Prominent NGO Human Rights Watch, in their report titled “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Legacy Ignored,” alleges that the government of former Mexican President Felipe Calderón has not only failed to bring disappearances under control, but actively taken part in some instances:

Human Rights Watch has documented nearly 250 such “disappearances” that have occurred since 2007. In more than 140 of these cases, evidence suggests that these were enforced disappearances—meaning that state agents participated directly in the crime, or indirectly through support or acquiescence. These crimes were committed by members of every security force involved in public security operations, sometimes acting in conjunction with organized crime. In the remaining cases, we were not able to determine based on available evidence whether state actors participated in the crime, though they may have.

The report goes on to describe several of those disappearances in-depth, including the beatings by local police, detentions by federal police, and possible shootings ordered by the Navy. Calderon’s war on the cartels did not go as planned, with actions to rein in fighting between organized crime rings instead leading to greater bloodshed. By conquering all elements of crime and supplanting the government, the Zetas — the largest of the cartels — currently controls the third-largest state in Mexico.

In the end, Human Rights Watch urged newly sworn-in President Peña Nieto to take action to reverse the policies of his predecessor. “While disappearances may have started on Calderón’s watch, they did not end with his term,” Human Rights Watch Americas Director José Miguel Vivanco said in a release. In a visit to the White House in November, Nieto pledged to reduce violence within his country, without offering details on how.

Instability in Mexico is finally making its way into the politics of the United States, though in the context of border security and immigration reform rather than the war on drugs. During a town hall meeting, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) faced down a constituent who said invading Mexico was necessary to “clean up the cartels.” Despite the worries of many conservatives, the achieved nearly all of the targets for border enforcement in 2007, with 81 percent of the U.S.-Mexico border now meeting one of the top three levels of “operational control” by U.S. enforcement officials.