Mexico's former ambassador to the United States said Tuesday there are 30 million "undocumented immigrants" currently living in the United States, far more than the U.S. government's claim of around 11 million.
"If you were to deport the 30 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, that's going to cost you about $130 billion," Arturo Sarukhan told MSNBC.
As Sarukhan continued to talk, a graphic flashed on the screen that said it would cost $137.5 billion to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Near the end of the interview, Sarukhan spoke about a 2014 Senate proposal dealing with immigration and referred to the number of illegals living in the U.S. as 11.3 million. He repeated that figure shortly before the segment ended.
Story continues below video.
In the video, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — a Republican candidate for president — alluded to there being "12 or 13 million" illegal immigrants in the U.S.
The actual number of illegals living in the U.S. is unknown, but the American government estimates it to be somewhere around 11 million.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said last month that
he believes the number of illegals in the U.S. is around 30 million, a figure he said came from "other people" and "various newspapers."
Two years ago, a group of former Border Patrol agents wrote in
an open letter that the number of illegals in the U.S. was more like 18-20 million.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.