In a current blog entry, VDARE.com editor James Fulford writes:
The point Trump occasionally misses is that legal immigration is as bad for America as illegal. To use a Trumpian example, a woman who is raped by a Mexican doesn't feel better if the Mexican has a Green Card in his pocket, and neither does an American who's lost his job to an immigrant feel better to think that the immigrant's visa complies with all applicable laws.
James's essential point brings to mind an evergreen quote to the same effect from the late Sam Francis:
If the only problem with illegal immigration is that it's illegal, if you're not willing to say mass immigration by itself is a problem, then why should we have any laws against it at all?
[Immigration Policy Bad For America!—Not Just GOP, VDARE.com, January 13, 2005]
In online comment threads, you'll often find entries—e.g. "Immigration isn't the problem. Illegality is."—from individuals who don't yet grasp the big picture. Those are opportunities to advance the public conversation by offering up the Francis quote.
And if you'd like to think some more about this yourself, you might be aided by reading Mark Krikorian's classic piece at National Review Online on June 1, 2007, during that year's cataclysmic fight against the Bush-Kennedy-McCain attempt at mass amnesty: Legal Good / Illegal Bad? Let's call the whole thing off.