As the debate over immigration reform has brought the management of the U.S.-Mexico border back into the spotlight, this report provides a comprehensive look at the state of affairs in the management of the U.S.-Mexico border and the border region, focusing on four core areas: trade and competitiveness, security, sustainability, and quality of life. The report suggests that rather than consider each issue individually, the interdependent nature of topics like trade and security demand the border be approached from a more holistic perspective.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the partnership between Mexico and the United States? What might be done to improve it? Exploring both policy and process, and ranging from issues of trade and development to concerns about migration, the environment, and crime, the authors of Mexico and the United States provide a comprehensive analysis of one of the world’s most complex bilateral relationships.

Goodman's paper discusses U.S. firearms trafficking to Mexico as well as the lesser known phenomenon of the illicit movement of U.S.-origin firearms to Guatemala.

Immigration reform gained momentum in the United States after the 2012 presidential election, when the Hispanic vote helped to swing the election conclusively toward President Obama, a fact he alluded to recently while in Mexico. This just-completed, nationwide Chicago Council survey reveals support for some variation of immigration reform, similar to other ecent polls. But there is still a lot of grassroots work to be done to break down stereotypes. Half of Americans overstate unauthorized immigration levels into the United States, which seems to intensify bias against Mexican immigrants and opposition to reform.

Amid powerful demographic, economic and social forces reshaping Mexico and much of Central America and newfound momentum for reform of the U.S. immigration system, the countries of the region have new avenues to improve opportunities for their own people and strengthen regional competitiveness with new collaborative approaches on migration and human-capital development, an influential task force convened by the Migration Policy Institute and the Wilson Center concluded in a final report.

The Mexico Institute prepared a brief highlighting the potential for expanding student exchange and international mobility programs between the U.S. and Mexico.

The book consists of seven short chapters. The first positions Mexico as a fundamental issue for the United States. The second delves into the origins of the country’s current situation and choices. The third analyzes the conundrum of the nation’s politics. The fourth describes the process of decentralization that overtook the country in recent decades and what that entails for decision making. The fifth explores the economy, where it comes from and how it has performed, as well as its current dilemmas. The sixth examines the issue of security and its complexity. The book ends with a few thoughts on the stakes and opportunities looking toward the future.

What emerges in this publication is a nuanced portrait of the individuals who have been tasked with serving as the key link of the U.S. government with Mexico. Dolia Estévez's effort to bring their memories and their perspectives to light helps illuminate a little known part of the political relationship between the two countries. It also chronicles a changing relationship between these countries from "distant neighbors" to "intimate strangers," who are deeply dependent on one another and yet are only still getting to know one another well enough to manage the relationship.

An analysis of cabinet leadership in Mexico has always provided insights into political recruitment trends for the policy-making leadership in general. This essay briefly analyzes the backgrounds of the twenty-two cabinet secretaries and important cabinet-level agencies, and the president, and compares them with equivalent leadership, where appropriate, from three prior presidential periods. Those consist of the cabinet members from the pre-democratic era, 1935-1988, from the democratic transition, 1988-2000, and from the democratic era, 2000-2013.

This paper gives an overview of Mexico’s judicial reform process and where things stand now that the Peña Nieto government has assumed the presidency from Felipe Calderón. A key challenge in tracking the reform continues to be the unavailability of systematic data on institutional changes; Ingram’s paper highlights the weakness in data availability but his measures of reform progress also contribute to ameliorating this weakness.

The Mexico Institute presents policy recommendations for strengthening U.S.-Mexico relations during the administrations of President Obama and President Peña Nieto.

Based on the collaborative work of a high‐level group of Mexican energy experts during the first half of 2012, this report focuses on the issues facing Mexico’s hydrocarbon sector and the most important principles that must underlie the forthcoming reform of the country’s oil and gas industry. Although multiple diagnoses of the sector exist, in recent years there has been no fundamental examination of the principles that should underlie the nation’s energy policy.

The depth of economic ties with Mexico, together with declines in illegal immigration and organized crime violence in Mexico, open up an opportunity for U.S. policymakers to deepen the economic relationship with Mexico and to engage Mexico more on major global issues.

The final report of the Latino Leadership Task Force is a call to action for Washington to prioritize partners and markets in the Western Hemisphere, and to engage the Latino community as partners in the effort. The report urges Washington to enact hemispheric policy that better reflects changing demographics in the United States and the growing influence of the U.S. Latino community, which drives desperately needed job creation and growth in the United States.

Mexico’s geographic location and its world-class solar resources make it a prime candidate for solar energy development. To date, however, investment in the sector and government support for the industry has been quite limited, and solar energy has lagged far behind wind and geothermal generation. This paper argues that the northern border states of Mexico provide an extraordinary opportunity for investment in solar energy for local consumption by businesses and residential customers.

"The State of Security in the U.S.-Mexico Border Region," is a new working paper by the Border Research Partnership, and will be a chapter in the forthcoming "State of the Border Report." This working paper looks at some of the many security concerns along the U.S. border, among them global terrorism, spillover violence from Mexico, and undocumented immigration.

More than a billion dollars of goods are traded across the US-Mexico border each day. With so much commerce, efficient and secure border management is essential to promote the competitiveness of the US and Mexico. This report identifies strategies to meet this challenge.

In this brief, Mexico Institute's Senior Adviser on immigration David R. Ayón, looks into legal Mexican immigration to the U.S., utilizing new data from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics.

In this report the Wilson Center's Eric L. Olson analyzes the upcoming Mexican election, specifically the candidate's foreign policy positions and what may change should the PRI win the election.

The U.S.-Mexico border region is one of enormous energy resources, both traditional and renewable. This report provides an overview of the prospects for renewable energy projects in Mexico’s border states, examining the development of wind, solar and municipal solid waste projects. This research evaluates the potential impact of investment in these projects on border communities in terms of employment, infrastructure, human capital and social participation.

This report recognizes the growing potential for bioenergy, which has attracted public and private sector interest in recent years. It has become clear that Mexico’s land and labor costs make the cross-border trade in renewable energy an exciting and potentially highly profitable sector. Of bioenergy feedstocks, municipal solid waste may represent the greatest potential for growth in Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico transborder region.

With over 1,000 MW of wind energy capacity now installed and another 2,000 MW under construction, Mexico’s wind energy sector has grown dramatically since the early 1990s. This report examines the potential for creating economic benefits in border states from wind energy development, with particular attention paid to employment and infrastructure.

Debate over immigration policy in the United States has centered on law enforcement and related legal reforms. Two other factors, however, are key elements of a broader discussion, especially in international forums.

The Mexico Institute presents a new publication on U.S.-Mexico security cooperation by Senior Associate Eric L. Olson that challenges the conventional wisdom about crime and violence in Mexico and suggests new strategies for effectively addressing the security threats posed by organized crime.

Despite the tenuous state of public security in Mexico and the impact the U.S. economic recession has had on the country, Mexico has been successful at boosting its economic performance, while at the same time demonstrating innovation in its agricultural, aerospace, automobile manufacturing and energy sectors.

In the updated and translated version of their latest book, renowned economic and political analysts Luis de la Calle and Luis Rubio put forth the provocative notion that Mexico has been transformed from a mostly poor to a predominantly middle class country. They document the rise of the middle class and analyze its profound implications.