Conservatives obsessed with "the law" when it comes to immigration

[Famous Mortimer]

It just really seems odd to me, conservatives who are mad at illegal immigrants for breaking the law but simultaneously want to make it easier to get citizenship. It's just a ridiculous position. It's like if I said, I want to legalize marijuana but I want to make sure that everyone who smoked it while it was illegal serves their full time in jail. No one would ever take that position, because it's stupid. Yet tons of conservatives take the same line on immigration. Surely some of them are just being disingenuous, they actually favor immigration categorically but they can't say that so they temper it with this weird statement about the rule of law. Others though seem to actually believe it, I don't know if they're just blindly repeating what establishment Republicans have said or if they really do have that much of a hard on for the law, like they love the law even when they think it's wrong (odd that such a position doesn't apply to Obamacare or gay marriage).

[politicus]

Who should inhabit a country is a very fundamental question, marijuana legalization is utterly trivial compared to it. Believing that all immigration should be under control of the state and regulated by the law is a logical position even if you are generally in favour of immigration because there is a security aspect to this and it is so fundamental.

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6cyDsuNx_U