Chicago, Aug 20 (EFE).– Experts say Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s promise to seize Mexican immigrants’ remittances if Mexico does not pay for the construction of a border wall is just more bravado on the billionaire’s part to remain on top of the polls.

Trump, who disclosed his plan for dealing with illegal immigration last Sunday, got back in the spotlight when he said that as president he would end illegal immigration with drastic measures.

The real estate mogul said the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants would be deported, and a wall would be built along the U.S. border, with Mexico footing the cost for the project.

If Mexico refuses to pay, Trump said, the U.S. government would seize immigrants’ remittances “derived from illegal salaries,” among other measures.

“Trump’s statements seek to lead the discussion toward issues without merit and provoke an illegitimate debate,” Harvard University’s Manuel Orozco, a specialist on remittances and migration, told EFE.

In 2014, Mexico received $23.6 billion in remittances from emigrants living and working in the United States, but not all of them are illegal immigrants, Orozco said.

Remittances drawn from the wages of undocumented immigrants are hard to identify because the companies handling the transfers have no authority to verify the immigration status of clients using their services.

“What Trump promises is not possible and, more importantly, it is illegal to propose penalizing individuals for acts that pertain to the government’s authority,” Orozco said.

There are limited circumstances under which the government can legally garnish a person’s income and “legal status is not one of them,” Orozco said.

Angie Maria Kelly, executive director of the Center for American Progress, said Trump “is disconnected from reality,” and called the plan to confiscate remittances “socially and economically stupid.”

“It is easy to say something like that, but it is technically impossible to do it, and it is illegal,” Kelly said.

Kelly said she was concerned not just about “Mexicans and the Latino community being an inexhaustible target for Trump’s insults,” but the fact that the other 16 candidates vying for the 2016 Republican nomination did not react.

The Center for American Progress has estimated the cost of deporting 11.3 million undocumented immigrants at an average of $10,070 per person for a total of $114 billion, which includes finding each foreigner, detaining them while awaiting completion of the deportation process in the courts and transporting them out of the United States.

A study by the conservative-leaning American Action Forum said it would take 20 years to deport all illegal immigrants with the total cost reaching between $420 billion and $620 billion. EFE