Secretary of State Marco Rubio terminated the legal status of a 42-year-old Laotian national convicted of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl, and ICE removed him to Laos within hours, Newsmax reported. The deportation came roughly one month after Minnesota's Board of Pardons, led by Governor Tim Walz, unanimously wiped the man's conviction from the books in what federal officials say was a deliberate attempt to block his removal from the country.
The man, Tou Lue Vang, had been convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2006 for repeatedly assaulting a girl between 2002 and 2004, beginning when she was 10 years old. Investigators noted that Vang once offered the child $10 to keep quiet and described the abuse as "a cultural thing."
An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on Oct. 31, 2006. Yet Vang remained in the United States for nearly two decades, until ICE detained him on Dec. 10, 2025, during Operation Metro Surge. A federal judge ordered his release on Feb. 19, writing that the government "detained the petitioner first, and asked questions later." Then, on June 10, the three-member Minnesota Board of Pardons erased his conviction entirely.
Minnesota's Board of Pardons consists of three officials: Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. All three voted unanimously to pardon Vang. The board said the victim's letter supporting clemency was the decisive factor.
Under federal immigration law, a state pardon can extinguish the underlying conviction that triggers removal. That legal reality gave the pardon real teeth, it threatened to strip the federal government of its basis for deporting Vang. The Washington Examiner reported that DHS stated the pardon would "take away this child rapist's qualifying convictions that made him removable from the United States." The pardon came just one week before Vang's scheduled deportation to Laos.
That timing alone raises questions about the board's priorities. The pardon did not dispute the facts of the case. It did not claim innocence. It simply cleared the legal path for a convicted child sex offender to remain on American soil.
As we previously reported when the pardon was first granted, the decision drew immediate condemnation from federal officials and Republican lawmakers alike.
Rubio did not let the pardon stand as the final word. The Secretary of State invoked his authority to refuse restoration of Vang's green card and restart proceedings, effectively terminating Vang's legal status in the United States. ICE carried out the removal within hours.
Rubio framed the action in blunt terms:
"Because of our action, this foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again."
Just The News reported that Rubio also stated: "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."
DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis was equally direct. In a statement after the removal, Bis said Walz "pardoned this sex criminal in an attempt to allow him to remain in our country."
The full statement from Bis, as reported by Breitbart, went further: "These are the criminal illegal aliens he and sanctuary politicians are protecting. We will always put the safety of the American people first."
Ellison's office argued that the pardon did not actually shield Vang from deportation because the Trump administration retained the power to refuse to restore his green card and restart proceedings. His office reiterated that position in a statement after the removal.
That argument deserves scrutiny. If Ellison's office knew the pardon would not block deportation, then the pardon served no practical immigration purpose, and the board granted clemency to a convicted child sex offender for its own sake. If the office believed the pardon would block deportation, then the post-hoc defense is revisionism. Either way, the result was a unanimous vote to wipe the record of a man who sexually assaulted a child over a two-year period.
Ellison's office also noted that the board denied pardons to three other men convicted of sex crimes who are facing deportation. That fact is presumably offered as evidence of restraint. But it only sharpens the question: what made Vang's case different?
The board pointed to the victim's letter supporting clemency. No further details about the letter's contents have been made public.
The Vang case does not exist in isolation. Walz has used the pardon power before to intervene against federal immigration enforcement. Fox News reported that Walz called a special session of the state's Board of Pardons' Clemency Review Commission to pardon Jai Vang, a different Laotian national convicted of armed robbery in 1994, specifically to prevent his deportation by ICE.
In that case, Walz stated: "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." Then-Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons pushed back: "If the governor doesn't like the laws, he's free to advocate that Congress change them, but he should refrain from putting ICE officers in danger by likening them to one of the most appalling groups in history."
That last remark referred to Walz's comparison of ICE agents to "modern-day Gestapo" during Operation Metro Surge, language that drew sharp criticism from law enforcement and Republican officials.
The pattern is clear enough. When federal authorities move to deport illegal immigrants with serious criminal records, Walz reaches for the pardon pen. The question is whether Minnesota voters, and the victim in this case, are well served by a governor who treats clemency as an immigration tool.
Vang entered the United States as a refugee in 1994 under the Clinton administration. Between 2002 and 2004, he repeatedly sexually assaulted a child. He was convicted in 2006. An immigration judge ordered him removed that same year.
For nearly two decades, that order went unenforced. ICE finally detained Vang in December 2025. A federal judge released him in February. The Board of Pardons wiped his record in June, one week before his scheduled deportation. And Rubio ended the saga on Friday, terminating Vang's status and putting him on a plane to Laos.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a Minnesota Republican, posted on X on July 1 calling the pardon another action by "our feckless governor that puts violent illegal aliens ahead of innocent Americans."
The federal government's successful removal of Vang despite the pardon stands as a test case for the limits of state clemency power when it collides with federal immigration enforcement.
Clemency exists for good reason. It is a safety valve against unjust convictions, excessive sentences, and cases where rehabilitation is genuine and complete. No serious person argues the pardon power should be abolished.
But the pardon power was not designed to function as a back door around federal immigration law. It was not designed to let state officials override duly issued removal orders. And it was certainly not designed to keep convicted child sex offenders in the country against the judgment of federal courts and immigration authorities.
Walz and Ellison voted to pardon a man who assaulted a child for two years, offered her $10 for silence, and called his crimes "a cultural thing." They did so one week before he was scheduled to leave the country. Whatever the victim's letter said, the elected officials on that board owed a duty to every other child in Minnesota, and to the basic principle that foreign nationals who commit serious crimes against American children have no right to remain here.
The public backlash against the pardon was swift and bipartisan in its instincts, even if the political class split along familiar lines.
Rubio acted. ICE moved. Vang is in Laos. The system worked, but only because the federal government refused to let a state pardon become a shield for a convicted child sex offender.
When a governor uses clemency to protect a convicted predator from deportation, the question is no longer about mercy. It's about whose side he's on.
