Guatemalan deportees exceed 50,000 in 2013

Planes carrying 399 Guatemalans landed in Guatemala City on Friday bringing the total number deported this year from the United States to 50,233. That's a 25 percent increase over the 40,647 deported in 2012.

Another ~30,000 were returned to Guatemala via land presumably after having been picked up somewhere in Mexico. That's about 10,000 less than last year.

So really, there is no difference in the number of Guatemalans returned involuntarily in 2013 compared to 2012. On the face of it, it just looks like a greater number of Guatemalans were picked up at the US border, and within the US itself, while fewer were stopped in Mexico and returned to Guatemala via land.

Guatemalan authorities estimate that approximately 200,000 Guatemalans undertake the journey north each year (~550 per day) so there is another 120,000 unaccounted for. Some make it to the US, others settle in Mexico, and a third group returns voluntarily to Guatemala (perhaps they were robbed and ran out of money or decided the trek was not worth it).

The 1.5 million or so Guatemalans residing in the US will send over $5 billion in remittances back to their home country in 2013.

As of a week or so ago, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency provided the following breakdown of deportees.

1. Mexico - 241,493 (121 million)
2. Guatemala - 47,769 (15.5 million)
3. Honduras - 37,049 (8 million)
4. El Salvador - 21,602 (6.2 million)
5. Ecuador - 1,616 (15.5 million)
6. Brazil - 1,500 (200 million)
7. Colombia - 1,429 (48 million)
8. Nicaragua - 1,383 (6 million)

Last year at this time I wrote that the US should extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Guatemalans residing in the US. I'd say TPS is dead at this point.