Your suspicions are, like everyone who denies the rule of economics, misplaced economics. Suffice it to say that I have a friend who has run a local body shop for years, and he isn't hiring any illegal aliens: yes, they'd be cheaper. But he doesn't want to operate that way. Economics does not trump everything: it merely indicates that opposing values may have different consequences, and that certain "obvious" thoughts dont' hang together very well. See, for example, Ricardo's Difficult Idea
"Your suspicions are, like everyone who denies the rule of economics, misplaced economics."
I've been involved in the construction business for over 30 yrs. I don't know about CA but, in Texas, use of illegal workers is wide spread. There are businesses whose entire operation and profit margin were based on the employ of *cheap* labor. There's nothing *misplaced* accept ethics. All these people see is the bottom line.