Minnesota Governor Tim Walz thought he had shielded a convicted child rapist from deportation with a last-minute pardon. The Trump administration had other ideas.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Tue Lue Vang, a Laotian national living in the country illegally, has been deported after federal officials stepped in to override the clemency. Rubio told Fox News he personally revoked Vang’s legal status, clearing the path for the Department of Homeland Security to remove him from the United States.
The facts of Vang’s crimes are disturbing. According to court records, he was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after repeatedly raping a 10-year-old girl between 2002 and 2004. After his arrest, authorities reported that Vang described his actions as “a cultural thing” and claimed it was acceptable in his culture “to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.”
As originally reported, Rubio pulled no punches in his statement, saying Vang had “admitted to committing heinous crimes against a 10-year-old girl” and had attempted to pay his victim for her silence, dismissing his abuse as “a minor thing.”
“Just days before he was scheduled to be deported, the Minnesota Governor pardoned him, setting him free to endanger American families once again,” Rubio said.
The pardon was approved on June 10 by Minnesota’s Board of Pardons, a three-member body consisting of Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. The board acted on a recommendation from the nine-member Minnesota Clemency Review Commission. In a letter notifying Vang of the decision, a commission member wrote that being granted a pardon was “a notable achievement and a reflection of the work you have done since your conviction.”
Rubio made clear that the federal government would not allow state-level political decisions to interfere with public safety enforcement.
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,” he said. “That’s why I terminated his legal status in the United States.”
Rubio confirmed that Vang has since been removed from the country and stated he “will never pose a threat to any American ever again.”
The episode puts Walz back in a harsh spotlight. The former vice-presidential candidate and sitting governor now faces serious questions about the judgment exercised by his administration in approving clemency for a man convicted of one of the most serious crimes imaginable, just days before a scheduled deportation.
Federal officials made their position unmistakably clear: a governor’s pardon does not get the final word when national immigration enforcement is on the line.