Back in the early 1980s, my older brother worked at a meat packing plant in a small midwestern town for $17 per hour, which was reasonably good money at the time. Now, the same industry in the same type of towns hire illegals and pays them even less even though the price of ground beef at the super market has more than tripled. Go figure.
Technically nobody should be “hiring illegals” (which is different from H1B arrangements, which tend to be contractors). It is banned. But the nation is falling asleep with the nodding and winking.
A contractor economy makes sense to nervous companies in a tight time with greedy, proud tyrants (not private enterprise, but government) presiding over it. I’ve switched to that mode and in fact am working cheek-by-jowl with H1B, which almost to a person are very decent.