Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz responded to the deportation of a convicted child sex offender with a question that immediately lit up the political battlefield.
“Did that make us any safer?” Walz asked Tuesday.
The Trump administration’s answer was emphatic: Yes.
Walz was discussing Tou Lue Vang, a 42-year-old Laotian national who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl and later received a pardon from Minnesota’s three-member Board of Pardons.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked Vang’s legal status last week, clearing the way for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport him to Laos.
“Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable?” Walz continued, according to KTTC.
“Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day? And I want to be very clear, these are horrific crimes. They often are.”
Vang entered the United States in 1994 and received legal status during the Clinton administration, according to DHS. He pleaded guilty in 2005 and received a 30-year probation sentence in 2006 for first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a girl under 13.
DHS said Vang repeatedly assaulted the girl, beginning when she was 10 years old.
The department also alleged that Vang offered the victim $10 to remain silent and initially tried to minimize his conduct. According to DHS’s account of law-enforcement records, Vang described the abuse as a “minor thing,” invoked cultural norms and suggested the child shared responsibility.
A final removal order was issued against him in 2006, according to CBS News Minnesota.
The Minnesota Clemency Review Commission later recommended that he receive a pardon. On June 10, the Board of Pardons unanimously approved it.
Tim Walz's baffling response to Trump admin deporting pedophile illegal migrant that he pardoned https://t.co/37gxJHNbNu pic.twitter.com/L70ZvRdplP
— New York Post (@nypost) July 15, 2026
