How the Republican Plan for Immigration Reform Repeats the Mistakes of the Drug War

...some legislators still think the best way to discourage certain behaviors is to jack the cost of engaging in that behavior through the roof. 

...Legislators basically said the same thing about drugs in the 1980s. That decision led to overcrowded prisons, generational poverty, massive voter disenfranchisement, and misplaced law enforcement priorities. Decades later, conservatives—including Texas Governor Rick Perry—are breaking up with the drug war. That's why it's so odd to see Congressional Republicans push something that would duplicate its worst effects. 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2014/01/how-immigration-reform-repeats-mistakes-drug-war/8199/