Without a doubt the company's excuse will be that the workers are not company employees. They are subcontracted by a third party who is responsible for checking their status.
Do H2B visas now cover the construction industry? I recently discovered a HUD condominium project in Ohio being built entirely by illegals. I ‘visited’ the site several times, often on Sundays and once on a holiday and found only non-english speaking Hispanics and many vehicles with out- of-state plates. Only the ‘supervisors’ were Caucasian. The same company has recently completed several other housing projects the same way.
While I’m certainly no fan of illegal aliens...these people are treated poorly, bait-and-switched on wage promises, and sometimes even stiffed..routinely. The contractor prefers illegals because he knows they will have little recourse when the foreman says “payroll is gonna be a little short this week”.