SANTA MONICA, California — Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said Wednesday that no one really knows how many illegal aliens are inside the United States.

“Nobody knows if it’s 11 million, if it’s eight million or if it’s 12 million and thats’ a problem not knowing how many people you have undocumented in the United States,” Fox stated in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.

Conventional numbers range between 11 and 12 million illegal aliens, but some experts have estimated that the actual number of illegals inside the United States could be as high as 20 million.

Rather than using that uncertainty as a reason to build a border wall, as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wants to do, the confusion around illegal aliens should spark efforts at comprehensive immigration reform, Fox suggested.

Fox mentioned the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill from 2005, which he said he wishes Congress had acted on, arguing that every person in the U.S. would have been documented through the use of identification cards.

That would be fantastic, [knowing] if it’s 11 if it’s eight, and you will learn that they’re not criminals. You would learn that they’re working for Trump to begin with. They’re working for every family in the states and they’re bringing quality of life to your life, to your life, by working in your gardens, by cutting the grass, by being in the kitchen in every restaurant in the United States. They do a great contribution to this nation.

“Mayor Bloomberg said in New York, this city would collapse if the Mexicans were not here and everybody says the same,” Fox added. “They are accountable as I said before for six percent of all jobs in United States comes from Mexican imports. The contribution to the gross product of the United States is incredible. Why should you deny this reality?”

“This is why I invite Trump to Mexico and I think I have the capacity to tell him how happy you can be when you’re a compassionate leader,” stressed Fox.