I hear all this talk about "breaking the law," but I don't know whether crossing the border without a visa is a misdemeanor or felony. I'm under the impression that it actually belongs to the category of administrative violation, like speeding or parking next to a hydrant. Under the current law, they don't serve time for it or get fined for it. So to me that says our system regards crossing border without a visa somewhat better than a speeding ticket.
It's a low level misdemeanor. Doesn't even carry jail time. We used to have a decent guest worker program for Mexicans and others till the congress screwed it up. We can have thousands of technically trained foreigners come here, but the numbers of blue collar immigrants allowed in are woefully inadequate to our needs. All it would take is for the republicans to go back to what we had before they and their buddies screwed it up and everything would be fine.