thief vs illegal is there a difference?

The primary thing that makes something a crime is not that it violates a particular law per se, but that it violates the rights of another person or the communities generally accepted standards of justice. This is called "moral turpitude". It involves any act that violates another person, or for which they would feel violated; murder, rape, theft, assault, slander, etc. Things like running a stop sign or turning without signaling are not acts of moral turpitude but they are violations of law.

So stealing violates the right of a person to have property, even though that property is offered for sale in a store it still belongs to someone and taking it without permission violates that right.

Likewise entering a country without the permission of those that govern that territory, the elected representatives of the people that live there, is a violation of the rights of the people to use their land as they want to. Its the same as someone coming onto your land or into your house without your permission.

Most legal codes are based upon the deeper concept of moral turpitude, but not always. Most of the income tax laws for example are written to forcibly extract value from a person's life without having any actual or philosophical right to do so. And people are often punished more severely for those kinds of illegal acts than for some acts where a real person is actually violated.

So basically there is no difference. Both stealing and entering the country as a foreign person from another land both violate moral and written laws, where people are acting in a way that violates the rights of others.

One is petty theft, in many states, a misdemeanor. The other is a violation of federal law, which is always more seriously viewed (with the exception of some recent and our current administration). The cost involved in an act of petty theft is usually low, (in our state, less than $400). The cost involved in illegal immigration is much higher (lack of payment of income taxes, burden to society of getting on food stamps, welfare, blatant disregard for our laws and our sovereignty, fraudulent use of the social security system - through theft of SS numbers, etc.) Granted, not every person in our country illegally creates the same burdens, some create more.

Every country in the world controls its borders. We used to, but we have (over several years) lost control, and the politics involved are trying to 'muddy the waters' and paint illegal immigration as a victimless crime. In reality, it is not

Yes. Have you ever exceeded the speed limit? Then you're the same as an illegal alien then, right? We're all the same as illegal aliens then.

By your logic there's no difference between somebody who let's his car insurance lapse and somebody who rapes and murders an entire kindergarten class. I mean, they're both illegal, right? There's no in between, amirite folks?

the difference is that being an illegal immigrant is Legal, being a thief is illegal