Gov. Tim Walz is drawing some criticism after he defended his pardon of a convicted sex offender who, according to federal authorities, has since been deported.
At an unrelated news conference on Tuesday, Walz defended the Minnesota Board of Pardons — which includes Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson — over their decision to pardon 42-year-old Tou Lue Vang, who was convicted in 2006 of criminal sexual conduct with a 10-year-old girl that began when he was 18.
Federal authorities announced Friday that they had deported Vang, accusing Minnesota officials of attempting to “shield” him.
Vang entered the U.S. from Laos in 1994 and was granted legal status, which was revoked following his conviction and order of removal in 2006, according to Homeland Security.
In his Tuesday comments, Walz cited the victim’s advocacy for Vang’s pardon, and said several other factors, such as rehabilitation and the positions of the prosecutors and judges involved, go into the board’s decisions. He also noted that Vang had already done time for his crimes and questioned the decision to remove Vang from the U.S. decades later.
“If you think this person should have been gone, why didn’t you [federal authorities] take them for the last [20] years?” Walz said. “You had every right to do that, and that might have been the right thing to do — I’m not saying that — but they did not. And then all of a sudden, they’re saying, ‘Well, we’re going to deport you because of this crime.’ I think that’s fundamentally unfair.”
Last week, Ellison’s office said “DHS is lying through their teeth about this pardon,” and that the pardon did not protect Vang from deportation.
On Tuesday, Walz echoed Ellison, saying the pardon was not based on Vang’s immigration status. He added that on the same day the board pardoned Vang, they denied pardons to others who were also facing immigration issues.
“The Secretary of State, [Marco] Rubio, has the authority to deport people who aren’t citizens — they made that choice,” Walz said. “I guess the question I would ask is: Did that make us any safer? Did that make the children that are left behind any more stable? Did it improve the idea that we can’t all be judged by our worst day?”
Homeland Security responded to that comment on X on Wednesday.
“For Tou Lue Vang this wasn’t just one ‘worst day’ — it was YEARS of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl starting when she was 10. Just disgraceful,” the post said.
Many Republicans took to social media Wednesday to criticize Walz’s comments.
U.S. House Majority Whip Pete Stauber said on X that Walz “has the audacity to question whether the Trump administration’s decision to deport that child rapist made Minnesota safer.”
“Newsflash, Tim. When a criminal who preys on children is removed from our state, that does in fact make us safer,” Stauber said.
Rep. Tom Emmer echoed that on X: “Well, Tim, typically, communities are safer when convicted child predators aren’t just roaming the streets.”
The dissent from the Board of Pardons’ decision has not been exclusively from Republicans. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said last week that as a former prosecutor, she would not have voted for the pardon.
