Rubio: U.S. Deports Convicted Child Rapist Pardoned by Walz

Rubio: U.S. Deports Convicted Child Rapist Pardoned by Walz

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. deported Tue Lue Vang, a Laos native, despite receiving a pardon from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Fox News reported.

Rubio said:

Just weeks ago, a convicted sex offender and a foreign national was shielded from deportation by the governor of Minnesota.

Laotian national Tu Li Vang was convicted of repeatedly sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in the state of Minnesota. He even tried to pay his victim for her silence, and he called his heinous crimes a minor thing.

Just days before this foreign sex offender was scheduled to be deported, Tim Walz, the governor, issued him a pardon, setting him free to once again endanger the children of America.

Well, this week I revoked his legal status in the United States, and as a result, federal agents took him into custody. And as of today, he has been removed from the United States because of our action.

This foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again. Americans must never be forced by their elected leaders to live alongside foreign sex criminals who have no right to begin with to reside in our country.

This administration will always stand with the American people and defend them from violent criminals.

Laotian national Tou Lue Vang was convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in Minnesota. 

He was set to be deported until @GovTimWalz issued him a pardon.

Then, I revoked his legal status. @ICEgov has removed him from the U.S. and he will never endanger another… pic.twitter.com/WCJkeeheJO

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 10, 2026

A Minnesota state court convicted Vang “for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree for abuse of a female minor between 2002 and approximately 2005 (when he’d have been about 22).”

The girl was 10-years-old when the abuse started. Vang tried to bribe the girl with $10 to stay quiet about the abuse.

Vang invoked “cultural norms” to excuse his actions.

An immigration judge ordered Vang’s removal on October 31, 2006:

Vang was sentenced in February 2006 to 12 years imprisonment for that crime, but that sentence was stayed, though he did receive 30 years of supervised probation (which was discharged in March 2019) and also served eight months of a one-year sentence in a county workhouse.

Criminal sexual conduct in the first degree under Minnesota law is an aggravated felony as defined in section 101(a)(43)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), that is, a crime of “murder, rape, or sexual abuse of a minor”, rendering Vang removable under section 237(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the INA.

Consequently, Vang was ordered removed from the United States in late October 2006, but because Laos at the time was a “recalcitrant” country — that is, one that refused to accept returns of its deported nationals from the United States — Vang’s removal order went unexecuted for nearly two decades.

Laos agreed to take some deportees from the U.S. in May 2025.

Authorities arrested Vang during Operation Metro Surge in December:

It’s not clear when Vang first submitted his petition for a pardon, but he was arrested during DHS’s “Operation Metro Surge” in December and his removal was imminent when the state’s three-member Board of Pardons — which consists of Gov. Tim Walz (D), Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), and “nonpartisan” Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson — unanimously granted that pardon on June 10.

The board’s approval followed a split vote by the nine-member Minnesota Clemency Review Commission on Vang’s application in April, with four members of the commission voting in favor of Vang’s request and two opposing it, with three absentees.

Apparently, a letter from the victim supporting the parole played a part in the board’s decision.

Walz praised Vang, insisting he became a “critical member of the community” and even called him a U.S. citizen.

“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,” Walz said. “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.

However, there are ways to get around the law to deport pardoned aliens:

Section 237(a)(2)(A)(vi) of the INA provides that an alien cannot be removed on the criminal deportation grounds in section 237(a)(2) for, among other things, an aggravated felony, if the alien “has been granted a full and unconditional” presidential or gubernatorial pardon for the conviction that formed the basis for such charge.

Vang must still reopen his October 2006 removal proceedings under section 240(c)(7) of the INA and have the aggravated felony ground of removal dismissed to escape deportation, but while the Supreme Court has held immigration adjudicators have “broad discretion” to deny such motions, the justices have also concluded “the purpose of a motion to reopen is to ensure a proper and lawful disposition”.

Arguably, and likely inescapably, “proper disposition” here likely means the immigration court’s dismissal of its 2006 removal order, as that order relies on Vang’s conviction and that conviction is no longer a valid basis for removal by statute.

“Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting. Tou Lue Vang lost his legal status following his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl. Following the conviction, he 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.”

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