Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) doubled down on his defense of the child rapist he pardoned in a failed effort to shield him from deportation.
Walz on Tuesday questioned the Trump administration’s decision to deport Tou Lue Vang, a Laotian national who was convicted for repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl beginning when she was just 10 years old. He suggested that the deportation did not advance the idea that people should not be “judged by our worst day.”
“They made that choice,” Walz said of the deportation. “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?” he added.
Beginning in 2002, Vang, then 18-years-old, repeatedly had sexual intercourse with a young girl over a two year period starting when he was 18 and she was 10. He also offered to pay her to not report his actions, according to investigators.
When arrested, he claimed it was part of his culture and said the victim should be charged as well. “I made a mistake, but this is a minor thing. It is a cultural thing in Thailand to marry and have sex with girls as young as 12,” he reportedly told police.
For the crime, Vang spent just eight months at the Ramsey County, Minnesota, Correctional Workhouse and was given 30 years of supervised probation. The family of the victim pressured her to refuse to cooperate with law enforcement, according to prosecutors.
Walz suggested that it was unfair to deport Vang, who now has a large family.
“In many cases, their children are citizens,” the failed vice presidential candidate said. “And by just picking them up and taking them out with no due process, it just seems unfair. If you think this person should have been gone, why didn’t you take them for the last 30 years?”
Last month, Walz, Democrat Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson ultimately accepted the recommendation of the Minnesota Clemency Review Commission and pardoned Vang.
The commission cited immigration concerns in its 4-2 vote to recommend a pardon for Vang and argued that deporting him would “not in the best interest of society.”
Vang first came to the United States in 1994 and was given legal status by the Clinton administration, according to the Department of Homeland Security. An immigration judge issued Vang a final deportation order on October 31, 2006, following his conviction.
Last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Vang had been deported.
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