(CNN) — News that Mexican authorities found 513 would-be illegal immigrants packed tightly into trucks, with the United States as their destination, should shock Americans into action. They were from Mexico, Japan, China, India and Nepal, and authorities said each had paid $7,000 to gangsters to be smuggled in.

Coming only days after President Obama mocked those calling for stronger border and workplace enforcement (by asking if they wanted moats and alligators), the incident highlights the role of organized crime in smuggling people into the United States in defiance of federal immigration law.

Washington (CNN) — Mexican President Felipe Calderon addressed two of America’s most contentious political issues during a speech to the U.S. Congress Thursday, asking for a return of the assault weapons ban and blasting Arizona’s controversial new immigration law as a “terrible” endorsement of racial profiling.

Michael Clausen owns the Quality Inn in Nogales, Ariz.

For now.

Clausen says the hotel, which caters to people streaming across the Mexican border just seven blocks away, is in danger of closing, thanks to the state’s new illegal immigration law and the official and unofficial boycotts it has inspired.

A broad range of issues is expected to be discussed — including the economy, drug violence and the environment — but no major announcements are expected, officials said in the days leading up the North American Leaders’ Summit.

Obama will meet with Calderon before the three leaders gather at a working dinner Sunday evening, according to the White House.

“The themes of this summit are: one, economic recovery and competitiveness; two, citizen safety and security; and three, clean energy and climate change. All are core priorities of this administration,” National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said in a briefing last week.

In Mexico last year, drug violence was blamed for the deaths of 78 soldiers and more than 6,000 others. This year, the drug violence has claimed more than 2,900 lives, according to the newspaper El Universal.

Much of the violence has affected the U.S.-Mexico border.

Over the last five years, about 87 percent of firearms seized and traced by Mexican authorities were purchased in the United States, a draft of the report says. Most of the weapons were acquired at gun shops and shows in border states, according to the report. Many of these are high-caliber and high-power weapons, including AK-47s and AR-15 semiautomatic rifles.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has unveiled a broad new strategy to fight violent Mexican drug cartels on the border. It only lacks the presidential choices to run the top U.S. agencies battling drugs, border smuggling and illegal guns.

The White House has yet to nominate anyone to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration, or the Customs and Border Protection agency, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.

Those positions remain empty — their duties performed by career officials acting in a temporary capacity — even as the White House pledges an all-out attack on the drug cartels that threaten to destabilize Mexico and expand operations in the United States.

Biden made the remarks on NBC’s “Today Show,” after he was asked what he would tell a family member about traveling to Mexico, where the first cases of the virus — technically known as 2009 H1N1 — were detected.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, is advising people to avoid nonessential travel to Mexico, where the Mexican government suspects 159 deaths have resulted from the infection, most of them in or around Mexico City. Only a fraction of those cases have been confirmed.

Mexican officials say criminals use assault weapons from the U.S. in the violent border region.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S., say reinstating the ban would stop the deadly flow of weapons across the border.

Under the Clinton administration in 1994, Congress banned possession of 19 military-style assault weapons. The ban was allowed to expire 10 years later during the Bush administration.

Earlier this year, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said that Obama would like to reinstitute the ban on the sale of assault weapons, noting, “I think that will have a positive impact in Mexico at a minimum.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month that as a senator, she supported a measure to reinstate it.