I don't know that any responsible person is going to broadly defend something that is clearly illegal.
On the other hand, in the general sense, my attitude is that illegal immigration is not something that worries me or that I get can excited about. If people want to come to the U.S. from south of the border to make some kind of living, I really don't have any problem with it. The best thing for people like these, in my view, is to simply look the other way. We've got a lot of other much more important issues to deal with in the U.S.
I was explaining this attitude to a good friend recently, and he pointed out that not all illegal immigrants come here to make some kind of more or less honest living; that there are those who come here ill-intentioned; in other words, for criminal activity. I'm glad he pointed that out to me. It wasn't a dimension of the problem I was really much aware of, so had not considered. Obviously, these types are a problem and need to be dealt with firmly.
P.S. to the OP. I live in northern California also.