I’ve written about this before but I’ll do so again here. A contractor won the low bid to remove and replace flooring at my defense plant. He showed up at the door with around fifteen illegal aliens. They had to produce an ID to gain access. The Florida Driver’s License is difficult to reproduce, but they all had an FDL with their picture and name on it. All other information, address, FDL number, birth date, etc. was identical. The guard said if it had just been one guy he’d have given out a badge, no problem. The contractor had to take them away and bring in American Citizens, who need to be paid legally and therefore, more. This was no small company. It wasn’t a lawn service or a maid service. I think the illegal problem is greater than most people know.
(No, my company did not report, to my knowledge. They’d probably fire or reprimand any employee who brought unwanted attention to them. You tell your manager, he tells his and so on and so forth. Somebody kills it along that path because if you call the company lawyer he’d be very angry you brought it to his attention.)
There’s anecdotes all over the spectrum......and if you’ll see my other post, you’ll see that my experience is over two decades and many thousands of applicants and many many hundreds of employees. I did not operate in Florida, and Florida and Texas and other states are probably not typical.
And I will say this...for one time jobs...like this flooring job....you are far more likely to see that. With on going contracts, like tract subdivisions, commercial landscaping or janitorial or maintenance contracts - things that are daily or weekly - and thus require long term employees - you see much less of it.
And in those situations, it’s often impossible for the contractor to know. Just sayin....