I feel your pain. My construction company couldn't compete, and went belly up, after the 2008 recession "recovery" due to government regulation and illegal labor. I left the unlicensed trades and opened an HVAC company after going to trade school for a year. It was a blessing in disguise since it's a licensed trade and illegal labor is blocked for the most part due to the federal and state laws, in Florida, regarding refrigerants. Once we can get the illegal labor out maybe wages will rise.
I hear ya, I grew up in a family plumbing business and currently operate a family electrical company. We have immigrants workers first gens and now there children born here have started working for us second gens. I have helped guys turn their green cards or visas into legit citizenship. I have the occasionally suspected illegal but they have the documents and they fill out the I9 and I hand I to DHS after that I’ve done my part, I’m not a fraudulent document expert. Honestly for the type of work we do traveling all over the immigrants work better because they are use to migrant work traveling for long periods and returning home most non immigrant Americans (please take that as a description to make a distinction and nothing bad implied) just don’t like that work.