David Friedberg: We’ve Lost the Plot on Immigration
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Episode Description
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Brief Summary
The speaker argues immigration screening should prioritize economic self-sufficiency and shared civic values, and proposes ending social services for immigrants.
Key points
- A framework for immigrant selection. The speaker contrasts immigrants who can support themselves and contribute to society with those who rely on social services, presenting productivity as a selection criterion.
- Shared values over assimilation. The speaker says the issue is not assimilation, but sharing civic principles associated with the United States or France.
- Questions about civic principles. The speaker names freedom of speech, individual rights, gender equality, and respect for others’ rights as values that should matter in screening.
Episode highlights
- Shared values over assimilationThe speaker says the issue is not assimilation, but sharing civic principles associated with the United States or France.“It's not about assimilating to society.”0:40Oct 24, 2026
- Questions about civic principlesThe speaker names freedom of speech, individual rights, gender equality, and respect for others’ rights as values that should matter in screening.“Do you believe that women are equal to men?”0:59Oct 24, 2026
Transcript
If you're providing social services to an immigrant population, then that's not necessarily a productive immigrant population in terms of being able to contribute to growing the economy and supporting civil society. But if a population if immigrants come in and they're productive, meaning they can get jobs and they can work and they can support themselves, that means they're adding something positive to the economy, to the civil society, and that is the sort of selection criteria needs to take place. That's a simple framework for determining whether or not you should do this. And an easy way to solve it is get rid of social services for
immigrants. As soon as you get rid of social services for immigrants, then you self- select into the right population that's going to come in. It's not about assimilating to society. It's about sharing the values of what makes the United States the United States. The values of what do we actually care about? What are the principles that we all share as a civil society of the United States or a civil society of France is a screening criteria that seems to have been thrown out the window. Freedom of speech? Do you believe in the Second Amendment? >> Do you believe that women are equal to men? Do you believe that you should work
for your money as opposed to take it from the government? Do you believe in your individual rights? Is your church paramount to the government in the laws of the state? And do you believe that other people have rights that you don't get to trample on? Those are the sorts of things that are in many cases counter to the cultural, religious and other traditional beliefs of certain populations that end up causing the damage in the west. And I think that it's been kind of completely lost in the process.
