Research Library

In June 2023, the international boundary treaty governing the U.S.-Mexico border came under attack from Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lonestar. In a new research paper, nonresident scholars Stephen Mumme and Regina M. Buono outline the treaty’s history and examine key issues — advising on merits of recent challenges and long-term implications for the binational relationship between the United States and Mexico.

This paper maps out the network of alliances and subgroups within the two most powerful cartels in Mexico — the Sinaloa Cartel and the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación — and reveals key structural differences that could have important implications for policymakers.

This research paper profiles the current state of water management along the U.S.-Mexico border and examines the prospects for binational cooperation in confronting two main challenges — rising water demand and the persistent, long-term diminishment of the region's reliable riparian water supply.

The authors examine the impact of the transition to low-carbon energy on Texas K-12 education funding.

The 2021 Texas legislative session is known as the most conservative in a generation, but its ideological and partisan dynamics tell a more nuanced story. Political science fellow Mark Jones utilizes roll call vote data to improve our understanding of how the controversial session unfolded. Read his report below.

In an extension of an earlier analysis prepared for the American Action Forum, the authors use the Diamond-Zodrow computable general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy to simulate the macroeconomic effects of a 10-year fiscal plan financed by tax changes proposed by Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

On May 28, the Biden administration announced plans to speed up immigrant court cases — a bid to limit backlogs and extremely long waits for cases to be heard. The Center for the United States and Mexico wrote about this problem in its April 2021 recommendations for an "effective, nimble and fair” immigration court system.

Over the past decade, anti-vaccine rhetoric and activity have increased in the United States, resulting in decreased vaccination rates and more frequent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. In this study, researchers use Texas as a case study to determine if vaccine-related legislation became a partisan issue between 2009 and 2019.

In this paper, authors examine the concerns raised by a new wealth tax and analyze the economic effects of the tax using a computable general equilibrium model.

Nonresident scholar Isidro Morales argues that the best way to improve Mexico's energy autonomy, with political clout for the state, is to back the resiliency of its energy systems, in both fossil and non-fossil fuels.