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.”