Tim Walz just did something that most Americans will struggle to believe.
The former vice presidential candidate used his gubernatorial power to protect a convicted child predator from being sent back to his home country.
And the jaw-dropping details of what Walz actually signed off on will leave you red with rage.
The Minnesota Clemency Review Commission voted to grant a pardon for Tou Lue Vang, 42, despite his conviction for sexually assaulting a young girl, just before he was expected to be deported back to Laos. Vang’s pardon needed final approval from the clemency board, which includes Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D-MN), state Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Natalie Hudson, the state’s chief Supreme Court justice. They voted unanimously.
Vang was convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Between 2002 and 2006, he repeatedly sexually assaulted the girl. She was ten years old when the abuse began.
At one point, he offered her $10 to keep quiet about the abuse, according to DHS. He pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in a plea deal that spared him from going to prison.
Not a single day behind bars. Let that sink in.
While being interviewed by police, Vang tried to justify his actions by saying that for him “it is a cultural thing…to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.” He also claimed that the victim was just as guilty as him and should also be arrested.
Vang entered California from Laos in 1994 and received legal status under former President Bill Clinton. That status was revoked upon his conviction and removal order, according to DHS. After his conviction in 2006, a final order of removal was issued, but Vang never left the country.
He was detained by federal authorities last year as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge” in Minnesota. Deportation was finally imminent. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement noted in a social media post that the pardon was granted a week before his scheduled deportation. The Minnesota Board of Pardons voted in June to grant Tou Lue Vang a pardon for his 2006 convictions for sexual assault, strongarm sodomy, and procuring a child for prostitution.
And that is when Walz stepped in.
“Following the conviction, Tou Lue Vang was placed in removal proceedings and issued a final order of removal by a judge. This pardon will take away this child rapist’s qualifying convictions that made him removable from the United States,” Acting Assistant DHS Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement.
“Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” Bis said. “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting.”
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin went further, calling the move “horrific” in a statement on X. “This evil alien from Laos repeatedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old child,” Mullin said. “These are the illegal alien criminals sanctuary politicians like Tim Walz are protecting over American citizens.”
Walz’s office offered a justification. According to the New York Times, “Vang’s victim submitted a letter supporting the pardon.” Walz’s office pointed to the letter the victim provided the board, and said such pleas for clemency carry “significant weight.”
The victim’s letter is being treated as the moral cover for a decision that otherwise has none. A governor who spent his career lecturing Americans about protecting children just handed a clean record to a man who spent years abusing one. The letter matters. It does not explain away the pardon of a man who faced a lawful deportation order and received a reprieve instead.
The original lead prosecutor on the case, Susan Gaertner, whose office secured the conviction against Vang back in 2006, expressed skepticism about the pardon. She put him away. Walz let him walk.
But this was not a one-off act of misguided compassion. This is not the first time Democrat-run Minnesota has pardoned an illegal alien to stop the criminal from being sent home. Minnesota granted a pardon to another illegal immigrant who had been convicted of felony robbery with a gun just last month. In May, the state pardoned Jai Vang, a Laotian citizen whose criminal history includes convictions for robbery, armed robbery of a business, and driving under the influence of liquor.
Minnesota is marked by the DOJ as a sanctuary state, meaning it limits or forbids local and state law enforcement from cooperating with and assisting federal immigration authorities. That designation is not incidental. It is a policy choice, made deliberately, by the same politicians now using the pardon power to finish the job that sanctuary status started.
The Minnesota Clemency Review Commission was created in 2023 under Walz’s leadership to review applications for pardon from convicted individuals and make recommendations to the Minnesota Board of Pardons. Walz attempted to loosen the requirements for pardons in 2021 by requiring only two votes of approval from the Board of Pardons. The Minnesota Supreme Court shot down the attempt in 2022, declaring it unconstitutional. He kept trying. He built the infrastructure. And now he has the result he wanted.
The pattern here is worth naming plainly. Walz and the Democrat Party have spent years insisting that immigration enforcement targets the innocent, that deportations rip apart families who just want a better life, that the Trump administration’s crackdown is cruel and indiscriminate. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized Walz and Minnesota officials over sanctuary policies that protect illegal immigrants, even those convicted of violent crimes, from federal authorities. Trump was right. The facts of this case prove it.
When the federal government finally caught up with a man carrying a years-old deportation order for child sexual abuse, a Democrat governor used the pardon power to make him untouchable. That is the sanctuary movement stripped of its talking points. That is what the policy actually produces when it runs to its logical end.
And Tim Walz signed it.
Sources: Fox News, Department of Homeland Security, Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, PJ Media