Tim Walz publicly defended his vote to pardon Tou Lue Vang, a Laotian national convicted of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a 10-year-old girl, after the Trump administration deported Vang to Laos last week. Vang, 42, received a pardon from Minnesota's Board of Pardons on June 10.

Last Friday, the Trump administration announced that Vang's legal status in the United States had been revoked and that he had been deported to his home country of Laos. Vang had entered the U.S. through California in 1994 and was granted legal status during the Clinton administration.

Asked about the deportation, Walz questioned its effectiveness, asking, "Did that make us any safer?" and further questioned if it improved the notion that people can be judged beyond their worst day or if it made the children left behind more stable.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Vang's deportation, telling Fox News Digital, "Americans should never have to live in fear that foreign sex predators — shielded from deportation by their own elected officials — could endanger them or their children." Rubio also stated, "That's why I terminated his legal status in the United States."

Fox News Digital previously reported that Vang admitted to repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl over several years beginning when she was 10 years old.

Sources