{"id":543461,"date":"2026-07-10T22:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543461\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T22:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T22:29:11","slug":"marco-rubio-announces-deportation-of-minnesota-man-pardoned-last-month-us-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543461\/","title":{"rendered":"Marco Rubio announces deportation of Minnesota man pardoned last month | US immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Laotian man pardoned by state officialsin Minnesota last month has been deported from the country, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>, has announced.<\/p>\n

Tou Lue Vang, an immigrant from Laos, faced deportation for a 2006 conviction of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after raping a young girl between 2002 and 2004. Because Laos initially refused to accept deportees, Vang spent nearly two decades living in Minnesota<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In December 2025, federal authorities detained him during a massive immigration crackdown, and a federal judge later ordered his release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in February 2026.<\/p>\n

In June, Vang was pardoned by the Minnesota board of pardons after he expressed remorse for his actions and a letter from his victim said she forgave him, the Minnesota Star Tribune<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

In a letter obtained by the Star Tribune, the victim explained that she had \u201cmade my peace\u201d and forgiven Vang. \u201cHe is not the same person now. I have seen how he has changed,\u201d the letter reads.<\/p>\n

But the Trump administration has used the case to accuse Minnesota\u2019s governor, Tim Walz, and other state Democratic officials of protecting immigrants from deportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week I revoked his legal status in the United States and, as a result, federal agents took him into custody and, as of today, he has been removed from the United States,\u201d Rubio said, referring to Vang, in a video statement posted on Friday. \u201cBecause of our action, this foreign criminal will never pose a threat to any American ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walz\u2019s office did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the deputy assistant homeland security secretary for media relations, Lauren Bis, issued a statement calling the decision to pardon Vang \u201cdisgusting\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other Republican lawmakers, including the US House of Representatives majority whip, Tom Emmer, also said they were angered by the ruling.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m angry and disgusted at yet another action by our feckless governor that puts violent illegal aliens ahead of innocent Americans,\u201d Emmer wrote in a post on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security said Vang first came to the US in 1994 and was granted legal status, but his status was revoked after his conviction and a final order of removal was issued in 2006.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Laotian man pardoned by state officialsin Minnesota last month has been deported from the country, the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-543461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}