Minnesota's Board of Pardons, led by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, granted a full pardon to a 42-year-old illegal immigrant from Laos who was convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl, wiping his record clean just as federal authorities were preparing to remove him from the country.
The pardon for Tou Lue Vang came at the board's June 10 meeting. The Washington Examiner reported the decision was unanimous and came just one week before Vang was scheduled to be deported to Laos, a timeline that makes the board's urgency difficult to explain as routine.
The three members of the Minnesota Board of Pardons are Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. All three voted to erase the conviction of a man who pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct, a crime committed against a child over a span of years.
Vang entered the United States through California in 1994 and received legal status under the Clinton administration. Between 2002 and 2006, he repeatedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in what prosecutors in Ramsey County charged as first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
When arrested in 2005, Vang admitted to having sexual contact with the girl but blamed cultural norms in Thailand, the New York Post reported, citing a criminal complaint obtained by the New York Times. The Washington Examiner added that Vang told law enforcement the victim "should be arrested too."
He offered the girl $10 to keep quiet.
Vang pleaded guilty in 2006 in a plea deal that spared him from prison. His legal status was revoked upon conviction, and a final order of removal was issued the same year. Yet he was never deported, and remained in the country for nearly two decades until federal authorities detained him as part of the Trump administration's "Operation Metro Surge" in Minnesota.
Vang applied for a pardon, citing years of rehabilitation and claiming he took full responsibility for his actions. The Minnesota Clemency Review Commission, a nine-member body, voted in April to recommend the pardon. The vote was 4 in favor, 2 against, with 3 members absent. A bare majority of those present sent the case to the Board of Pardons, which holds the final authority.
The board granted the pardon at its June 10 meeting. Carli Stark, executive director of the Clemency Review Commission, wrote to Vang in a letter notifying him of the decision:
"Being granted a pardon is a notable achievement and a reflection of the work you have done since your conviction."
The pardon gives Vang what the commission called "a clean slate." The Washington Examiner reported it could "thwart his removal from the United States" by stripping away the qualifying conviction that made him deportable.
Neither Walz, Ellison, nor Hudson has publicly explained why they voted to pardon a convicted child sex offender one week before his scheduled deportation. Fox News Digital reached out to Walz and the Ramsey County Attorney's Office; no responses were reported. The New York Times noted that Walz's office pointed to a letter the victim provided to the board, saying such pleas for clemency carry significant weight, though the contents of that letter have not been made public.
The Department of Homeland Security did not hold back. DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis issued a statement that framed the pardon as a deliberate act to shield a criminal illegal immigrant from federal enforcement:
"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."
Bis also noted that the Clemency Review Commission has granted pardons to illegal immigrants before, suggesting a pattern rather than an isolated exercise of mercy. Fox News reported that in May, Minnesota pardoned another Laotian national, Jai Vang, whose criminal record included convictions for robbery, armed robbery of a business, and driving under the influence.
Two pardons for illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories in consecutive months. Both from Laos. Both facing potential removal. The timing raises an obvious question: Is Minnesota's clemency process being used as a back door to block federal deportation orders?
The pardon lands against a broader backdrop of governance failures in Walz's Minnesota. Vice President JD Vance has called on the Justice Department to investigate Walz over allegations tied to a massive benefit fraud cover-up in the state.
That investigation centers on the Feeding Our Future scandal, the largest pandemic-era fraud case in the country. Vance went further and sent Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Ellison to the Justice Department for a criminal fraud referral, the same Keith Ellison who sat on the Board of Pardons and voted to clear Tou Lue Vang's record.
The fraud scandal has also drawn scrutiny toward other Minnesota political figures. Rep. Ilhan Omar has denied ties to the Feeding Our Future fraud while attempting to shift blame elsewhere.
None of this means the pardon was corrupt in a legal sense. But it reveals a political culture in which accountability is optional, consequences are negotiable, and the people who pay the price are never the ones making the decisions.
A pardon can wipe a legal record. It cannot undo what happened to a 10-year-old girl between 2002 and 2006. It cannot unsay what Vang told police, that the child "should be arrested too." It cannot return the $10 he offered her to stay silent.
Vang pleaded guilty. He avoided prison. He avoided deportation for nearly 20 years. And now, with the stroke of a pen from three Minnesota officials, he may avoid removal entirely, his conviction erased, his record clean, his presence in the country secured by the very state whose laws he violated.
Breitbart noted that by erasing the conviction, the pardon effectively made deportation nearly impossible, since the qualifying criminal offense no longer exists on paper.
The Board of Pardons offered no public rationale beyond the Clemency Review Commission's letter praising Vang's post-conviction conduct. No member of the board has explained why a man who sexually assaulted a child for years, blamed it on cultural norms, told police his victim deserved arrest, and offered her money to keep quiet deserved a clean slate, or why that clean slate had to arrive seven days before a plane was set to take him out of the country.
President Trump has repeatedly criticized Walz and Minnesota officials over sanctuary policies that protect illegal immigrants, including those convicted of violent crimes, from federal authorities. This pardon will do nothing to quiet that criticism. If anything, it validates it.
The victim in this case was 10 years old. She has no board, no commission, no letter congratulating her on her achievements. Minnesota's clemency system found time to celebrate the rehabilitation of her abuser. Whether anyone in St. Paul paused to consider what message that sends to her, or to every other child failed by a system more interested in mercy for offenders than justice for victims, remains an open question that answers itself.
