> You can have open borders or you can have a welfare state. You can not have both. That's not saying that it's okay to "defend a reduction of welfare payments

> You can have open borders or you can have a welfare state. You can not have both. That's not saying that it's okay to "defend a reduction of welfare payments to discourage immigrants from coming." It's saying that if you don't reduce your welfare payments, you will eventually be discouraging immigrants from coming, probably by closing your borders. It's pretty much a political necessity. So Friedman's argument is actually the opposite, "let's reduce welfare so we can afford to have more immigrants here!" Or perhaps "you can have your generous welfare but be careful, this will eventually lead to discouraging immigration to the point of having de-facto closed borders, with all the unwanted side-effects of that."