Tim Walz pardoned an illegal immigrant who sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl to block his deportation.
Marco Rubio deported him anyway – and now Minnesota's largest newspaper has something to say about it.
What the Star Tribune just printed about Walz and that child abuser will leave you speechless.
What the Star Tribune Actually Published
Last weekend, Star Tribune columnist Rochelle Olson ran a "Cheers to Gov. Tim Walz" section praising the governor for standing behind his pardon of Tou Lue Vang.
Vang, a Laotian national, repeatedly assaulted a girl starting when she was 10 years old, over a period of two years.
When police first interviewed him, he called the abuse "a minor thing" and blamed it on cultural norms.
He told investigators the child victim was just as guilty as he was.
In 2006, he was convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
That same year, an immigration judge ordered him deported.
Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson voted unanimously on June 10 to pardon Vang – just weeks before his scheduled removal to Laos.
Marco Rubio overrode the pardon, revoked Vang's legal status, and deported him on July 10.
And then the Star Tribune ran a column celebrating the governor who tried to keep that man in America.
The January 6 Comparison That Broke the Internet
The column doesn't just praise Walz.
Olson compared Vang's crimes to the January 6 Capitol protest.
Her exact reasoning: "Vang's actions 20 years ago were awful, but so were the violent protests at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and those folks received presidential pardons."
She did not mention that the abuse lasted two years.
She did not mention that Vang once offered his victim $10 to stay quiet.
She referenced a letter from the victim supporting the pardon – but that letter was never included in the publicly released clemency application.
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House Majority Whip Tom Emmer lit into the paper on X, calling it a "depraved rag" and saying no one should read it.
Author Dennis Neale wrote: "The Star Tribune likens repeatedly r**ing a 10-year-old girl to protest in the Capitol on Jan. 6."
Claremont Institute senior fellow Jeremy Carl put it plainly: "The degeneracy of the modern Left would be impossible to exaggerate because it is impossible to exaggerate infinity."
This Was Not an Accident
This wasn't the first criminal illegal alien Walz's board pardoned to block deportation.
On May 27 – two weeks before the Vang pardon – the same board cleared Jai Vang, a convicted armed robber from Laos who was facing imminent removal.
That's a pattern, not a mistake.
Democrats have been running this playbook for years.
Gavin Newsom was pardoning convicted criminals to block deportation as far back as 2019.
The legal strategy is simple: wipe out the state conviction and you take away the federal government's primary tool for removing someone.
What Walz added was something no Democrat governor had tried before: using that strategy for a convicted child r**ist.
After the deportation, the White House put it in plain terms – that under Trump, "criminal illegal aliens who r**e children will be found, arrested, and removed – and Democrat politicians will not stand in the way."
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Walz tried to defend himself anyway.
"We can't all be judged by our worst day," he said.
For Tou Lue Vang, it wasn't a worst day.
It was two years of crimes against a child – and Tim Walz went to bat for him.
That's who the Minnesota Star Tribune gave a standing ovation.
And that's who Marco Rubio put on a plane to Laos anyway.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "DEPORTED: DHS Removes Convicted Child R**ist Pardoned by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz," DHS.gov, July 10, 2026.
- The White House, "Minnesota Democrats Pardoned a Convicted Child R**ist. President Trump Deported Him," Whitehouse.gov, July 2026.
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security, "Minnesota Madness: Governor Tim Walz Pardons Criminal Illegal Alien Convicted of Sexually Assaulting a 10-Year-Old Girl," DHS.gov, July 1, 2026.
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Firestorm Erupts Online After Minnesota Paper Praises Tim Walz's Clemency for Child Sex Offender," Fox News, July 20, 2026.
- Peter D'Abrosca, "Tim Walz Offers Strange Defense for Pardoning Convicted Child R**ist Trump Administration Deported," Fox News, July 16, 2026.
- Andrew R. Arthur, "Minnesota Board Pardons Child Sex Offender, Blocking His Imminent Deportation to Laos," Center for Immigration Studies, July 7, 2026.
- Joseph Klein, "Minnesota Leaders' Pardon Ploy to Block Deportations of Criminal Immigrants," Frontpage Mag, July 15, 2026.