Census Bureau: One New Migrant Enters U.S. Every 40 Seconds

The Census Bureau calculates that one person enters the United States legally, on net, every 40 seconds.

The Census Bureau’s U.S. and World Population Clock lists “components of population change” on the website: “one birth every 7 seconds;” “one death every 13 seconds;” “one international migrant (net) every 40 seconds;” making for a “net gain of one person every 12 seconds.”

The Census provides some background on the immigration debate in the United States on August 3rd, apropos of the 131st anniversary of the law banning people from immigrating to the United States if they were likely to need government assistance.

“‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ Poet Emma Lazarus composed those words in 1883 to help raise funds for a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty,” the Bureau recalled. “But on this date just a year earlier, Congress enacted one of the first immigration limitations in our history. The law barred entry to people thought likely to become what is called a ‘public charge,’ or burden on society. Immigration laws have been much revised since 1882 and remain a topic of great political contention to this day. But the U.S. has for some time accepted more immigrants than any other nation. Of the roughly 309 million residents counted in the 2010 Census of Population, nearly 40 million were foreign-born and another 40 million were naturalized citizens or noncitizen immigrants.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/385073/census-bureau-one-new-migrant-enters-us-every-40-seconds-joel-gehrke

These are just the legal numbers. Looks like America is very generous with its immigration policy. Not sure how people can complain about it. We need to close the borders and revisit how many immigrants we are taking before its too late, if its not already.

I have liberal thoughts about immigration. I still think there is room for more folks IF they are willing to work to support themselves and add to our tax base.

Ones that just want to live in America and take handouts can stay home. Half of our country is already on the dole and we certainly don't need more freeloaders.

The Great Society! Aaaaarrrrrggghhh!

I agree with that premise. I'm for legal immigration. I do think in times of recessions where jobs are few and our welfare system is overloaded that we should taper off.

I'm on the road right now but if I recall correctly we are really using the refugee status alot the last decade and a lot of these people are not paying taxes. And they are not assimilating but instead are creating separate culture neighborhoods all over the nation.

Legal immigration is a positive.

Joanimaroni wrote:

Legal immigration is a positive.

Yes, its most desirable. Because they have to learn our laws and our language.

My point is America has a very generous LEGAL immigration policy. So for those who think we don't have immigrants coming into this country, we do. At the rate of 1 per every 40 seconds. So its not like we are against immigration.

Just ILLEGAL immigration.

Although I still stand by that under economic distress we should taper it. We should be providing jobs for those of us here already before importing job takers from afar.

But, Tree. Many of those migrants do jobs that arrogant Americans are too proud to do. There are jobs going unfilled because it is below us. You aren't going to see many Americans in the fields picking fruit & vegetables, for instance.

I just had some Hispanics do some roofing work because I didn't want to work 35' above the ground. In my prime, I would have done it. These guys were happy to do it.

Eric wrote:

But, Tree.  Many of those migrants do jobs that arrogant Americans are too proud to do.  There are jobs going unfilled because it is below us.  You aren't going to see many Americans in the fields picking fruit & vegetables, for instance.

I just had some Hispanics do some roofing work because I didn't want to work 35' above the ground.  In my prime, I would have done it.  These guys were happy to do it.

Now Eric, I know you need your roof fixed. And we have over 80 million legal immigrants here and another 12-14 million illegal ones. That's a 1/3 of the entire population almost. Do you think it takes that many to fix the roofs?

Are you a advocate of a completely open border? I'm just asking so I know your stance. I'm for reasonable immigration.

And Eric, immigrants are not just coming here to fix roofs and pick fruit. Many of these are high paid jobs that are being recruited. They get visa's because they work cheaper than a US workers and they are willing to take it because they want to come here. This takes jobs from middle class workers.

Im not advocating stopping it all. But when we have a downturn like now, we should be prudent and adjust our allowances of visa's accordingly. And the border needs to be closed period, bad juju down there. If you want roofers and pickers, they can have work visa's and they need to be screened. And those visas should also be monitored.

No, I am not against an open border.

I feel that very few Hispanics are qualified to take our middle class jobs.  I was in the workforce for 40 years and NEVER saw a fresh immigrant take a middle class job... never.  And I have seen a lot of workers in my time and managed many of them.  I didn't even get applications for the middle class jobs I had open.

I don't think your premise is valid (about immigrants taking middle class jobs), certainly not Hispanics, a class of people that seems to have people most riled up.

From an article in the New York Times: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/immigration-and-american-jobs/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

And then there are articles like this from Briebart.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/26/Study-All-Job-Growth-Since-2000-Went-to-Immigrants

I am aware that corporations do benefit and that's why they are for it more. I do think that we have so many that all of those people are not a benefit,many are a burden to the tax payer. Take a look at this.

•Immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher rates than natives, even before the current recession. In 2001, 50 percent of all immigrant households with children used at least one welfare program, compared to 32 percent for natives.


•Households with children with the highest welfare use rates are those headed by immigrants from the Dominican Republic (82 percent), Mexico and Guatemala (75 percent), and Ecuador (70 percent). Those with the lowest use rates are from the United Kingdom (7 percent), India (19 percent), Canada (23 percent), and Korea (25 percent).


•The states where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62 percent); Texas, California, and New York (61 percent); Pennsylvania (59 percent); Minnesota and Oregon (56 percent); and Colorado (55 percent).


•We estimate that 52 percent of households with children headed by legal immigrants used at least one welfare program in 2009, compared to 71 percent for illegal immigrant households with children. Illegal immigrants generally receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children
http://cis.org/immigrant-welfare-use-2011

and then lets look at high paying jobs. As far as the abc story, I do not believe that there are not enough highly trained workers to fill this many positions.

2010, there were nearly half a million workers on H1B visas in the United States, 18 percent higher than in 2001.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/02/are-americans-losing-high-skilled-jobs-to-foreigners/

and that study wasn't from Breitbart, just used by them. It was from the center of immigration studies. And the data was collected by our own government. Data Source

This analysis is based on the "household survey" collected by the government. The survey, officially known as the Current Population Survey (CPS), is the nation's primary source of information on the labor market

http://cis.org/all-tennessee-employment-growth-to-immigrants

I think we should be able to find a reasonable number of both skilled and un skilled immigration. And it should be done legally and I think you agree.

Florida alone has over a million illegal immigrants. I don't know how many legal ones. Im sure a lot.

Another long term effect that you might not have thought of this. And this is why we should make sure the majority of our immigrants are legal. Many of these people are coming here from extremely oppressive governments. They will be willing to sacrifice a little freedom for a little comfort. It is and will change the demographics and politics and social structure of our country.

We need to manage it prudently. Not extinguish it.

  You're making me stay up late.. haha Im blaming you.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/08/18/Report-After-WH-Meets-with-Big-Biz-Obama-May-Use-Exec-Actions-to-Increase-Guest-Worker-Visas

I tripped myself up with a double negative in an earlier post, saying "I'm not against an open border".

I meant to say that I am against an open border. Immigrants should be allowed to enter under a work visa, that is, ONLY if they become productive (work), pay taxes, and don't use entitlements. We have enough damn freeloaders already.

Eric wrote:

I tripped myself up with a double negative in an earlier post, saying "I'm not against an open border".

I meant to say that I am against an open border.  Immigrants should be allowed to enter under a work visa, that is, ONLY if they become productive (work), pay taxes, and don't use entitlements.  We have enough damn freeloaders already.

Agree.....but that would probably makes me even less compassionate for my fellow man....

Employer sponsored work visas. That method puts the responsibility on the employer to ensure the worker is compliant.

mediawatcher wrote:

Eric wrote:

I tripped myself up with a double negative in an earlier post, saying "I'm not against an open border".

I meant to say that I am against an open border.  Immigrants should be allowed to enter under a work visa, that is, ONLY if they become productive (work), pay taxes, and don't use entitlements.  We have enough damn freeloaders already.

    Agree.....but that would probably makes me even less compassionate for my fellow man....

Just don't go killing them because you felt threatened.

Eric wrote:

I tripped myself up with a double negative in an earlier post, saying "I'm not against an open border".

I meant to say that I am against an open border.  Immigrants should be allowed to enter under a work visa, that is, ONLY if they become productive (work), pay taxes, and don't use entitlements.  We have enough damn freeloaders already.

Could you compromise on the amount of visa's issued every year? And say perhaps if unemployment is above 5% only so many are issued?

I mean companies like google and facebook have many employees on work visas and they make a crap load of money. Don't you think they could afford to use more American citizens?

The immigration laws have been in effect for years but are NOT followed by the employers..  If an employer has ILLEGAL aliens working for him, HE/SHE is just as guilty as the ILLEGAL alien and should be fined heavy enough that he/she would never do it again, instead of being slapped on the hand by a judge and set free to continue using ILLEGAL aliens..

I am 100% for employing LEGAL aliens that are following the laws that are established..

Kind of hard to do that when our leadership in Washington is found out to be employing them.

Chrissy* wrote:

Eric wrote:

I tripped myself up with a double negative in an earlier post, saying "I'm not against an open border".

I meant to say that I am against an open border.  Immigrants should be allowed to enter under a work visa, that is, ONLY if they become productive (work), pay taxes, and don't use entitlements.  We have enough damn freeloaders already.

Could you compromise on the amount of visa's issued every year? And say perhaps if unemployment is above 5% only so many are issued?

I mean companies like google and facebook have many employees on work visas and they make a crap load of money. Don't you think they could afford to use more American citizens?

The immigrants people seem to be so upset about are Hispanic immigrants, which seem to be very poor and have little education. I doubt that many of the Google or Facebook folks are Hispanic. My guess is that they are mostly from the across the Pacific... like the Philippines, Japan, China, Australia, etc... and even some Europeans. I just don't see the appropriate educational facilities for immigrants in Central America. Surely, Central America has facilities with higher learning, but I don't see the average immigrant crossing over from Mexico working for big bucks in Silicon Valley.