The government has made it so freaking expensive to employ someone legally that it is no wonder that many construction companies are willing to hire illegal aliens under the table.
I’ll bet a lot of those 800 laid off construction workers are vacationing back home in Mexico. Or they’re collecting welfare via an anchor baby. There hasn’t been a large non-union residential construction firm in SoCal hiring Americans in decades. Custom builders, small shops, remodel firms, they hire Americans.
The drywall trade in SoCal was a classic example. In the ‘70s it employed a lot of blacks. It was unionized and provided a decent living. But the builders broke that union by hiring illegals for about a third less. The illegals could afford the lower pay by living 20 to an apartment, saving their money to take back to Mexico. Payback came some years later when the illegals threatened to strike and drove drywall costs back up.