Secretary of State Marco Rubio has removed a convicted child sex offender from the United States after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and the state's Board of Pardons granted the man clemency, just days before his scheduled deportation. Rubio told Fox News Digital that he terminated the legal status of Tue Lue Vang, a Laotian national convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct against a 10-year-old girl, and that Vang has now been deported.
The case lays bare a growing pattern in Minnesota, where the governor and his fellow board members have used the pardon power to shield illegal immigrants with serious criminal records from federal immigration enforcement. And it raises a pointed question for voters: When a governor's clemency pen moves faster than a deportation order, whose safety is the priority?
Vang repeatedly raped a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota between 2002 and 2004. He pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The Washington Examiner reported that Vang was sentenced to 12 years with the sentence stayed, plus 30 years of supervised probation, meaning he served no prison time for the assault.
After his arrest, Vang told authorities that "it is a cultural thing... to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12." Rubio stated that Vang "attempted to pay his victim for her silence and dismissed his acts of child abuse as a 'minor thing.'"
Vang entered the United States in 1994 and was granted legal status under the Clinton administration. That status was revoked following his 2006 conviction, and a final order of removal was issued the same year. Yet for roughly two decades, Vang was never deported. He remained in Minnesota.
On June 10, 2026, the Minnesota Board of Pardons, composed of Gov. Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Chief Justice Natalie Hudson, granted Vang a full pardon. The board acted on a recommendation from the nine-member Minnesota Clemency Review Commission. The New York Post reported that the CRC voted to approve Vang's pardon petition in April, with four votes in favor and two against. The CRC's executive director, Carli Stark, wrote Vang a letter calling the pardon "a notable achievement and a reflection of the work you have done since your conviction."
The pardon came just one week before Vang was scheduled to be deported to Laos. DHS officials feared the move would eliminate the qualifying convictions that made Vang removable, effectively blocking federal enforcement.
Gov. Walz defended the decision on the record. "I can find no reason how Minnesota will be safer or better if Mr. Vang is deported to a country he has not been to since he was a child," he said. He added: "I do not see how it would serve his family, nor the economic interest where we have a taxpaying citizen who is creating job growth and living a life free from any criminal activity."
Walz referred to Vang as a "citizen." Fox News Digital characterized that description as false, given that Vang's legal status had been revoked after his conviction. The governor's framing, casting a convicted child sex offender as a productive community member whose removal would harm the local economy, drew immediate condemnation from federal officials.
The pardon of Vang by the Minnesota Board of Pardons marked the second time in recent months that Walz and the board moved to shield a criminal illegal immigrant from deportation.
Rubio did not let the pardon stand as the final word. He terminated Vang's legal status in the United States, though the specific legal mechanism he used was not detailed, and confirmed to Fox News Digital that Vang has been removed from the country.
"Just weeks ago, a foreign child rapist was freed to once again endanger America's children after receiving a pardon from Minnesota Governor Tim Walz."
Rubio continued: "Just days before he was scheduled to be deported, the Minnesota Governor pardoned him, setting him free to endanger American families once again." He said he terminated Vang's status because "Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators, shielded by their own elected officials, could endanger them or their children."
His closing statement was direct: "Vang has now been removed from our country and will never pose a threat to any American ever again."
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis issued a blistering statement about the pardon. "Governor Tim Walz's decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting," she said. "These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting."
Bis also noted that the pardon would "take away this child rapist's qualifying convictions that made him removable from the United States," as Newsmax reported. The implication was clear: the pardon was not merely an act of mercy. It was, in DHS's view, a deliberate legal maneuver to frustrate federal deportation proceedings.
Attorney General Keith Ellison's office offered a different framing. A spokesperson said the Board of Pardons "made a unanimous decision to grant Tou Vang this pardon after an exhaustive process which included a statement of support for the pardon from the victim, a recommendation to grant the pardon from the Clemency Review Commission and a large number of community support letters."
The fact that the victim submitted a letter supporting the pardon adds a layer of complexity. But it does not change the federal government's core concern: that a state pardon was used to nullify a final order of removal issued twenty years earlier, shielding a convicted sex offender from the consequences of his immigration violations.
This was not a one-off. In May, Walz and the Board of Pardons pardoned another Laotian national, a convicted armed robber, before that individual could be deported. That case also drew federal scrutiny.
Breitbart noted that Vang received no jail time for his original conviction and that his legal status, granted under the Clinton administration, was revoked but never enforced through actual removal. The pardon erased the conviction entirely, making future deportation proceedings far more difficult, had Rubio not acted.
The pattern raises serious questions about how Minnesota's clemency apparatus is being used. The Board of Pardons has the legal authority to grant pardons. But when that authority is deployed repeatedly and specifically to block federal immigration enforcement against convicted criminals, it begins to look less like mercy and more like policy.
Walz's broader record on immigration enforcement has faced sustained criticism. A federal immigration probe targeting the governor and Minnesota Democrats has already generated legal disputes. And a separate House oversight report found that the Walz administration sat on fraud warnings while billions in federal funds drained from the state.
Walz described Vang as a taxpaying job creator living "a life free from any criminal activity." That may describe the years after Vang's conviction. It does not describe the years during which a child was being assaulted. And it does not address the fact that Vang remained in the country illegally for two decades after a final order of removal.
The governor's argument, that deportation would not make Minnesota "safer or better", is a policy judgment. But it is a judgment that prioritizes the comfort of a convicted sex offender over the enforcement of federal immigration law. Walz made that choice. Rubio reversed it.
Several questions remain unanswered. What specific legal authority did Rubio invoke to terminate Vang's status after a state pardon had wiped the conviction? Neither Ellison nor Chief Justice Hudson has publicly commented on their individual reasoning for supporting the pardon. And the full details of the CRC's recommendation process, including how a body split four-to-two in favor of pardoning a child sex offender, have not been disclosed.
The public backlash against Walz's pardon decision has been broad and bipartisan in tone, even if the political lines remain predictable. What is harder to predict is whether the governor will continue using the pardon power this way, and whether federal officials will have to keep cleaning up after him.
When a governor uses his office to protect a convicted child sex offender from deportation, and the Secretary of State has to step in to finish the job, the system hasn't worked. One man made it work anyway.
