Joe Biden’s former Border Patrol chief has warned that the illegal immigrant population is likely “much higher” than 20 million people.
On Wednesday’s edition of the Will Cain Show on Fox News, Raul Ortiz was asked about the scale of the challenges faced by President Trump and his administration.
“I’ve seen varying figures,” Cain remarked. “The one that’s always quoted is something like 20 million illegal immigrants in the United States.”
“Do you have any sense, how big is the population of illegal immigrants in the United States?”
Ortiz responded:
I would estimate it’s much higher than 20 million people.
When you think about, just even over the last ten years, how many folks that actually got away from the Border Patrol, and then those unknown gotaway numbers, that we [were] never able to manage because the Border Patrol agents were conducting other duties outside of their enforcement duties.
And so, what we’ve seen over the last five, six years, I think is really just a telltale sign of what happened over the last 20 years.
I can remember when I was a young agent in southern California in the early 1990s, there were droves of people walking up the interstates day in and day out. Those are those populations that have embedded in southern California.
1992, during the L.A. riots, we had to send Border Patrol agents up to L.A. to help support the men and women up there, and what that does is create this environment along the border where [you] diminish security both at the border and in these communities along the southwest border.
Watch the clip below:
Former U.S. border patrol chief Raul Ortiz on how many illegal immigrants are in the U.S.:
“I would estimate it’s much higher than 20 million people.” pic.twitter.com/b8acO86C4G— The Will Cain Show (@WillCainShow_) June 11, 2025
His comments underline the massive challenge faced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deporting a sizeable amount of America’s illegal alien population.
Even if the figure is as low as 20 million people, that would mean that nearly six percent of the total U.S. population is residing in the country illegally.
During the Biden administration, over 10 million migrants were allowed to enter the country, many of whom were convicted of crimes in their home countries or had links to transnational gangs such as Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua.
The issue of mass deportations has come into particular focus over the past weekend following the riots in Los Angeles, where far-left protesters have taken to the streets in opposition to Trump’s policy of enforcing immigration law.
Anti-ICE Rioters Smash Windows of LAPD Headquarters, Loot Businesses, Set Fires (LIVE VIDEO)
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