A three-person Minnesota panel including Gov. Tim Walz granted a pardon to prevent an immigrant convicted of sexually abusing a child from being deported.
Or, as PJ Media’s Matt Margolis more colorfully put it, “Imagine being so consumed by hatred for Donald Trump and his immigration agenda that you would hand a full pardon to a man who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl for four years, just to keep him from being deported. You do not have to imagine it. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) actually did it.”
This isn’t one of the “good illegal immigrants” the New York Times is always blubbering about. The pardonee, Tou Lue Vang, is a 42-year-old Laotian-born immigrant convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after a guilty plea. The details of his crime are especially disgusting. Vang pleaded guilty in 2006 to repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl beginning when she was only 10-years-old and continuing for four years, starting in 2002. When police arrested him in 2005, Vang didn’t even deny his crimes, explaining that it was a “cultural thing” to “marry and have sex with girls as young as 12.” Vang also tried to pay his victim to keep her from telling anyone about the abuse.
A cultural thing, is it? Add one more reason to the long, long list of why the the U.S. should not permit immigration from countries that have values and traditions antithetical to American culture. You know, like child rape…
Vang’s plea deal kept him out of prison because woke states like Minnesota don’t believe in criminal penalties, or something. Nice. It cost Tou his legal immigration status, and he received a final order of removal in October 2006—yes, that’s during the Bush Administration. Never mind: Vang stuck around for nearly two decades until Trump’s Minnesota operation focusing on the “worst of the worst” illegals caught up with him last year. Vang applied for a pardon in July 2025, hoping that the crazies in Minnesota would give it to him and, with Walz’s help, they did.
The pardon came from a three-person panel that consisting of Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), and Minnesota Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. Ellison defended his pardon of the pedophile by citing his opposition to President Trump. I think it is fair to diagnose Trump Derangement when public officials loose child rapists on the public to show their disrespect for the President of the United States.
Or am I being too judgmental?
Ethics Alarms 
I guess we’ll just have to trust that the “forgiveness” letter was not prepared under coercion.
So, it’ been 20 years since his guilty plea? Does he have grandchildren? I hope they are well.
I don’t care whether it was or not: it shouldn’t have carried any weight at all. The “client” is the public, not the victim. Justice should be irrelevant to what the victim wants or how the victim feels. The bottom line is that this guy spent four years abusing a little girl and had no punishment at all, and the US is stuck with another bad import….and whatever junk his gene pool inflicts on us.
I wonder why, procedurally, the pardon voids the order of removal. The guy may have been pardoned by the state, but he’s still a convicted felon. Why should a state pardon automatically reinstate his prior immigration status? If he was a convicted felon in Vietnam and had served his time, would he have been allowed in? I hope not. Just another way, among so many, that this case is so wrong.
Having been pardoned by the state, the conviction is null and void.
But it’s a fact.
I think Chris makes my point better below, Michael.
In the same sense the Lovings’ conviction was a fact.
Just how much weight does this pardon carry with immigration officials? None as far as I can tell. It was the Bush administration that issued the final deportation order so ICE can just carry it out. We are always reminded that Trump’s pardons don’t protect others from state charges.
This pardon just brings this guy’s case into the limelight and I am sure Tom Holman will sure to issue and order to pick him up.
Vang should use what time he has left on this mortal coil to find a shovel, dig a hole, bury himself in it, and pray that an asteroid the size of Texas falls on him and obliterates him to dust. Even criminal elements – especially criminal elements – loathe child molesters and they have few qualms with meting out misplaced justice. I envision a rather unpleasant termination of his existence on this planet.