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What Are Think Tanks?

Think tanks will produce reports, analysis, and survey results on a variety of policy issues. Although they consider themselves to be non-partisan, they do have a political bias.  Being non-partisan only means that they are not affiliated with a political party.  In alphabetical order, the following are some examples of commonly cited think tanks. 

• American Enterprise Institute 
• Brookings Institute
• Cato Institute 
• Heritage Foundation 
• Pew Research Center 

Examples of Think Tank Policy Recommendations

Here are some examples of reports by different think tanks on the topic of immigration reform: 

• A Roadmap for Immigration Reform by the Brookings Institute
• The Costs of Biden's Border Crisis: The First Two Years by the Heritage Foundation 
• The Fiscal Impact of Immigration in the United States by the Cato Institute 

These three reports are all about the same issue, however, they are from completely different political viewpoints. Take note of the language they use to describe immigration and immigrants. Can you tell which political perspective each report is from?