There’s a difference between welcoming immigrants and coddling them, and Democrats increasingly refuse to acknowledge it.
Immigration was never meant to be a one-way transaction where newcomers receive endless accommodation while the host country does all the adapting. The entire point — economically, civically, culturally — was, and always has been, assimilation. When that principle is abandoned, the system simply doesn’t work.
That’s what makes a resurfaced video of Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey addressing the city’s Somali community directly in Somali so revealing. It wasn’t malicious. It wasn’t hateful. It was actually much worse, as it was emblematic of a governing class that confuses symbolic inclusivity with actual integration.
A mayor speaking a foreign language to a massive immigrant bloc isn’t empowerment. It’s actually an admission that assimilation has failed and that city leadership has decided to work around that failure rather than confront it.
And this kind of cultural soft-pedaling has consequences. When leaders treat assimilation as optional and accountability as impolite, they create precisely the environment where large-scale abuses — like Minnesota’s litany of fraud scandals — can flourish.
This isn’t about heritage or pride. It’s about standards. There is such a thing as tough love, and until Democrats relearn that immigration without assimilation weakens both the immigrant and the country, these failures will keep repeating.
And oftentimes, this simple fact of life is ignored until the bill comes due.
Six months ago, Frey posted a video claiming he stands with the Somali community (which, to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with in and of itself) after President Donald Trump expanded his travel ban list to include Somalia, among a host of other nations.
“Minneapolis is proud to be home to the largest Somali population in the U.S.,” Frey posted to his Facebook. “Trump’s travel ban is divisive and harmful — punishing millions for no good reason. We stand with our Somali community.”
And that video is hardly a one-off.
When he’s not doing his best Rosetta Stone impression, Frey can also be seen wolfing down Somali cuisine — though never explicitly swallowing it.
Jacob Frey looks like he really went through it while sampling Somali cuisine pic.twitter.com/4E0ZSIImvW
— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) December 5, 2025
These coddling, backwards messages have received new scrutiny in light of the ongoing fraud scandal that is plaguing the Gopher State:
“Koona t’chuta Solo? Soong peetch alay. Ee mara tom tee tok maky cheesa. Jabba won neechee kochba mu shanee wy tonny wya uska. Chosky nowy u chusu.”
—Mayor Jacob Freypic.twitter.com/rD4YZhMg7I
— Michael Knowles (@michaeljknowles) December 30, 2025
(Yes, that’s The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles using Huttese — the language of a criminal syndicate alien race from Star Wars — to “paraphrase” Frey’s Somali.)
What’s most alarming isn’t just that assimilation has been treated as optional — it’s that, in some cases, it’s been actively discouraged. Left-wing rhetoric has increasingly framed American culture not as something to join, but something to resist, apologize for, or outright resent. When political leaders and activists teach newcomers that America is fundamentally oppressive, corrupt, or illegitimate, they shouldn’t be surprised when civic buy-in collapses.
That mindset doesn’t empower immigrants. It actually harms and isolates them. It replaces shared norms with grievance politics and mutual obligation with permanent victimhood. A society cannot function when large segments of the population are encouraged to see the country they live in as morally suspect and culturally hostile, which in turn justifies their own morally suspect and culturally hostile behavior.
Contrary to what the left may think, assimilation isn’t erasure — it’s cohesion. And without cohesion, trust erodes, standards weaken, and parallel systems take root.
This is the real danger Democrats refuse to confront. Immigration policy built on indulgence instead of expectation produces fragmentation. Teaching people to dislike the country they’re supposed to help build is a recipe for long-term instability, not progress.
If leaders like Jacob Frey want to talk about equity, safety, and accountability, they should start with a simple truth: this nation cannot survive if it’s afraid to ask newcomers to actually become Americans.
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