The real problem is legal versus illegal workers, not jobs Americans won’t do.

Over the years, a narrative has developed that many Americans are somehow lazier than illegal aliens. That’s generally bogus. The truth is that Americans have been priced out of lower-skilled jobs. Because illegal workers have brought down wages, Americans often can’t afford to work these jobs.

The legal status that American citizens enjoy comes with a litany of taxes, regulations, and demands that cost employers more than hiring illegal aliens, with whom they can avoid having to pay these costs. To put it bluntly, illegal aliens are cheaper labor because they are not legal.

Since the 1980s, Americans have increasingly been left behind, as illegal aliens have taken once good-paying blue-collar and entry-level jobs.

Sadly, this phenomenon is thanks to the 1986 law that President Ronald Reagan later said he regretted signing. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) granted amnesty to more than 2.7 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. at the time. The law was supposed to be a compromise, a way of “fixing” the illegal immigration problem, with Congress tasked with passing accompanying legislation to prevent further expansion of illegal workers and illegal immigration. That didn’t happen.

The employer-verification system was created but lacked real teeth and was effectively not enforced, at least not at scale. This allowed for the abuse to continue as American workers saw wages collapse as an increasing number of illegal aliens took over the jobs.

Slowly but surely, entire industries became filled with low-cost illegal alien workers. And the irony is that, far from solving the problem, the IRCA ended up making it worse. Politicians, specifically Democrats, saw illegal immigration as a tool for expanding political power.

Adding to the problem is America’s failing public education system. Schools aren’t preparing students for even entry-level positions. Public high schools used to recognize that a significant number of students would not go on to college; therefore, much more focus was put into educating them for work in the trades. Yet shop classes, where students would be exposed to everything from basic carpentry to auto mechanics, have effectively become a thing of a bygone era.

The problematic “livable wage” push to raise the minimum wage has also severely eroded and limited entry-level, low-skilled work opportunities for teenagers. These low-paying jobs were the early training grounds for helping students gain work experience and learn basic work ethic responsibilities.

Increasingly, many young Americans don’t get their first actual job until after college, seeking career opportunities related to their degrees with almost no actual work experience.

And now, with the growth of automation and Artificial Intelligence, entry-level job opportunities may be even scarcer. Add to this the fact that certain blue-collar industries are dominated by low-wage illegal alien workers, which has served to suppress wage growth, and many young Americans are finding themselves behind the proverbial eight ball.

There is no easy or one-size-fits-all fix to this systemic problem. However, it’s a good start that the federal government under President Donald Trump is finally doing its job to enforce our nation’s immigration laws.

Making America’s job opportunities great again will go a long way toward helping rid the country of the bogus notion that there are jobs Americans won’t do.