Sure there's a difference. Legal immigration requires too much time and too much money.
So far, to get my wife sponsored for permanent residency, I've had to file 250 pages of documentation and pay $3350.00 in legal and filing fees.
This is on top of the seven years she languished in the Asylum application with no action being taken on her case, despite her situation being one the US has railed about for decades (the mistreatment of Christians in China).
That's why I want to SCREAM whenever I hear any idiot talk about "legal" immigration.