Kudo's to your parents man! It's exactly people like them that are what truly made and still make America the amazing land of opportunity it is!
Like I said...my father was a high-school principal and my mother a teacher.
When we came to the USA, my old man worked as a janitor the first year, and yeah, he cleaned toilets...and in the winter he went out to shovel snow for people to make a few extra bucks. Then both of my parents worked for about another year or so in a ham packing plant, for Plumrose Products...but by the 3rd-4th year, they owned a restaurant, something my father always enjoyed, since his father was a restaurateur back in the old country before he died.
From there my parents stayed in that line of business right up into their '70s. There were some lean years, and a couple of his establishments didn't do as well...so during those in-between years he worked for someone else, doing some other jobs, but for the most part, he liked the idea of owning his own food service business, and not having to work for anyone.
My parents thought about getting back into education...but language was an issue in the beginning...and TBH, they would have had to be recertified in the USA as though they never were teachers before...so that wasn't a good path, and frankly, I think we did better as a family with the food service biz, but you're talking 14-16 hour days, and at times 7 days per week...but that's how it is when it's your own business.
Learning from that...my sister and I both worked all kinds of jobs in our younger days...there was none of this "entitlement" BS. She went on to become a lawyer, while I took a bit more time to settle into one thing, but eventually did. None of us ever had anything handed on a plate...it was always about working for it.
So yeah, America is the land of opportunity, and yes, there is a way to do it legally, you just have to be willing to put in the time and effort.