That "legal immigration process line" is the source of our current problems. You think anyone would pay some thug for a trek accross the desert in the summer, or to be stuffed into the back of semi if there was a realistically obtainable way to come here legally? By realistic, I mean in some reasonable length of time, like a year tops. Most of those who come are young adults, or teenagers. At that age, a year is a long time. Those wouldn't have to be, and should not be "citizenship track" entries either.
For all the talk of "high tech fences" and so forth, I would only observe that we haven't had much luck stopping drugs and in some cases weapons, from being smuggled into the country, despite spending condsiderable coin on the effort.
Only the military would stand a chance of blocking the border, and it would have to be greatly expanded to do so.
Fix the problem, even if that means "regime change" in Mexico, don't just try to treat the symptoms.
Everyone rails against Vincinte Fox, but the fact remains that his party is less nationalist, and is not socialist, than either of the other two major parties in Mexico. PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) and the farther left PRD (Party of the Democratic Revolution which only split from PRI in the late '80s), ismore corrupt, more leftist, and more hostile to the US.
I don't give a flip how long the process does or doesn't take--it is the only acceptable solution. ALL OTHERS should be deported. And there should be felony penalties applicable to ANYONE who assists them in either coming here, or living here, illegally.