Research Library

As President Obama prepares for a historic visit to Havana, thousands of the island’s residents are rushing to immigrate to the U.S., hoping to beat the rumored end of a policy that lets Cubans who reach American soil remain here. Read Erika de la Garza’s take on the unsought consequences of reestablishing U.S. ties to Cuba.

The Nov. 13 terrorist attacks that killed more than 130 people in Paris could represent a new stage in the struggle against ISIS. In this post on the Baker Institute Blog, Bonner Means Baker Fellow Joe Barnes analyzes what future steps France may need to take in response to the attacks and how the United States may be affected.

Katharine Neill, the Alfred C. Glassell, III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy, explains what you should know about the Justice Department's plan to release 6,000 nonviolent drug offenders from federal prison during four days in October and November.

Baker Institute experts blog on opportunities for the U.S. and Mexico to jointly address the neglected tropical diseases found among the poorest people living in both countries.

"Islamic extremism is not an enemy that we will vanquish. It is a problem we will be forced to manage," writes Baker Institute fellow Joe Barnes in a commentary on the Islamist attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris.

The March 2013 election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as the pope of the Roman Catholic Church has noticeably affected politics in Argentina, where 77 percent of the population is Catholic. By Pablo Ava, professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires School of Law, and 2008 Americas Project Fellow

After more than five decades, China's central government is modernizing, standardizing and regulating the Hukou system of registration that largely tied farmers to the lands on which they were born, and kept them out of the cities and away from competing with urban residents for jobs and benefits. China is now officially gradually phasing out its highly unequal two-tier system of citizenship.

It is inconceivable to imagine our nation today without the gains of the Civil Rights Act. It is impossible to understand why the issue was so divisive then, since it is such an obvious right and moral proposition. Similarly, let us hope we will look back at the Affordable Care Act 20 years from now and wonder why it was such a contentious topic in 2014.

The Texas Legislature did not pass legislation to ban and prevent the existence of "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants in Texas during the 2011 May-June special session. Political science fellow Mark P. Jones examines whether the demise of this legislation was the Republican leadership's preferred outcome.