Walz defends pardoning convicted child rapist who was then deported by Trump administration

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is standing behind his decision to pardon a 42-year-old Laotian national convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl, even after the Trump administration revoked the man's legal status and deported him to Laos.

Tou Lue Vang, who pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct for assaults committed between 2002 and 2004 in St. Paul, Minnesota, received a pardon from the state's Board of Pardons on June 10. Days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated Vang's legal immigration status and announced his removal from the country.

Walz's public defense of the pardon, delivered Tuesday, amounted to a series of rhetorical questions that dodged the most basic one: why a governor would use his authority to wipe the conviction of a man who admitted to years of sexual abuse against a child.

What Walz said, and what he left out

Speaking to reporters, Walz offered a defense built almost entirely on abstraction. He asked whether the deportation made anyone safer, whether it helped the children "left behind," and whether it advanced the principle that people should not be "judged by our worst day."

"Did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can't all be judged by our worst day?"

He added: "And I want to be very clear. These are horrific crimes. They often are."

What Walz did not address is the specific nature of the crimes he pardoned. Vang admitted to repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl beginning when she was in the fourth grade. The assaults continued for roughly two years. The New York Post reported that Vang pleaded guilty in 2005 and that Ramsey County prosecutors had opposed the clemency bid, noting the victim faced pressure from her family not to cooperate, a factor that contributed to a more lenient sentence at trial.

The governor also cited the victim's support for the pardon as justification, a claim attributed to local outlet KSTP. Whether the victim made any public statement directly, or whether her support is known only through Walz's characterization, remains unclear.

A pardon timed one week before deportation

The Washington Examiner reported that the Board of Pardons granted Vang's pardon on June 10, 2026, exactly one week before he was scheduled to be deported to Laos. That timing raises an obvious question the governor has not answered: if the pardon had nothing to do with immigration, why was it rushed through days before a federal removal order was set to be executed?

The three-member Board of Pardons consists of Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. Newsmax reported the vote was unanimous, with all three members approving the pardon after a recommendation from the Minnesota Clemency Review Commission. The specific grounds for that recommendation have not been disclosed.

A spokesperson for Ellison's office told MPR News that the pardon did not protect Vang from deportation. But DHS officials directly contradicted that claim, stating the pardon would remove the qualifying convictions that made Vang legally removable from the United States.

In other words, the pardon was on track to do exactly what federal officials warned it would do, shield a convicted sex offender from removal, until the Trump administration intervened.

Rubio acts, DHS responds

Secretary Rubio announced the deportation on Friday, telling Fox News Digital that he personally terminated Vang's legal status.

"Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators, shielded from deportation by their own elected officials, could endanger them or their children. That's why I terminated his legal status in the United States. Vang has now been removed from our country and will never pose a threat to any American ever again."

The legal mechanism Rubio used to revoke Vang's status, what specific authority or statute he invoked, has not been detailed publicly. Vang originally entered the United States through California in 1994 and received legal status during the Clinton administration. Federal officials placed him under a final removal order after his conviction.

DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis was blunter in her assessment of the pardon. She called Walz's decision "disgusting" and framed it as part of a broader pattern among Democratic officials in Minnesota.

"Governor Tim Walz's decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting. These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting."

The case fits a pattern of legal scrutiny falling on Democratic officials whose decisions intersect with immigration enforcement, and the political consequences that follow.

The details Walz glossed over

Walz's rhetorical framing, "we can't all be judged by our worst day", invites a closer look at exactly what that "worst day" involved. Vang's crimes were not a single lapse. He sexually assaulted a child repeatedly over a two-year period.

Breitbart reported that Vang described his crimes as "a cultural thing" and offered his child victim $10 in exchange for her silence. He was convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 12 years with the sentence stayed, plus 30 years of supervised probation.

The governor's appeal to the victim's wishes, even if accurately represented, does not resolve the policy question. A pardon erases a conviction. In this case, it threatened to erase the legal basis for removing a foreign national who had committed one of the most serious crimes in the criminal code.

Walz insisted the pardon was not about immigration policy. But the timing, the effect on removal proceedings, and the federal government's immediate response all suggest otherwise. If a governor pardons a convicted sex offender one week before his scheduled deportation, the immigration implications are not a side effect. They are the point.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Minnesota Republican, did not hold back about his governor's judgment, saying Walz "puts violent illegal aliens ahead of innocent Americans."

The broader political environment makes the pardon even harder to defend. Across the country, the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have moved aggressively on public safety and enforcement priorities. Democratic governors who move in the opposite direction, particularly on cases involving violent crimes against children, are choosing a fight that most voters, regardless of party, will not support.

What remains unanswered

Several questions hang over this case. The Minnesota Clemency Review Commission's specific rationale for recommending the pardon has not been released. The Board of Pardons has not explained why it acted when it did, one week before a deportation that federal authorities had already ordered.

It is also unclear whether Walz, Ellison, or Hudson were aware of the deportation timeline when they voted. If they were, the pardon looks less like an act of mercy and more like a calculated intervention in federal immigration enforcement.

Ellison's office has maintained that the pardon did not protect Vang from deportation. DHS said the opposite. One of those claims is wrong. The fact that Rubio had to take the extraordinary step of revoking Vang's legal status to carry out the removal suggests DHS had the stronger argument.

The case also raises questions about the scope of executive clemency when it collides with federal authority. A state pardon can erase a state conviction. But when that conviction is the legal foundation for a federal removal order, the pardon becomes something more than a second chance for a reformed offender. It becomes an act of obstruction dressed in the language of compassion.

Mercy for whom?

Walz asked whether the deportation made anyone safer. The answer, for the people of Minnesota and for the child Vang victimized, is straightforward: a convicted child rapist who admitted to years of abuse and tried to buy a 10-year-old's silence with $10 is no longer in the country. That is safer by any honest measure.

The governor asked whether people should be judged by their "worst day." But Vang's crimes were not a day. They were years. And the pardon was not a private act of forgiveness. It was an official action by three of the most powerful officials in Minnesota, taken at the precise moment it could block a federal deportation.

Walz can frame his decision however he likes. But the facts speak for themselves: a unanimous pardon, a one-week window before removal, a federal government forced to find a workaround, and a governor who responded to the whole episode by asking whether anyone was really made safer.

The people who elected Tim Walz to protect them deserve a better answer than a rhetorical question.