Minnesota has been the scene of fighting, protesting, even violence resulting in the deaths of several people, over the agenda by Gov. Tim Walz, the failed sidekick for Kamala Harris when she ran for president in 2024, to protect illegal aliens, even illegal alien criminals, from deportation.
The state has fought at every level against President Donald Trump’s plans to secure the border, crack down on illegal aliens, and target those illegal alien criminals for deportation.
Now Walz has found a new way to protect them: He pardons them.
That means they’re no longer subject to deportation as criminals.
A report at Fox explains Walz just days ago pardoned “an illegal alien previously convicted of armed robbery.”
The pardon was announced “before he would be deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The subject of the pardon was identified by Fox as Jai Vang, an illegal alien from Laos. He was convicted of aiding and abetting and armed robbery in 1994, and he served a prison term and was released.
But he then was arrested by ICE as part of the federal government’s Operation Metro Surge in the Minneapolis in January.
Fox revealed, “When Walz learned of Vang’s arrest by the federal government, and that Vang had requested clemency to avoid being deported in June, the governor called a special session of the state’s Board of Pardons’ Clemency Review Commission to ensure the case was reviewed before Vang’s deportation could be completed.”
Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and state supreme court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson voted unanimously to pardon Vang.
Walz said, “I can find no reason how Minnesota will be safer or better if Mr. Vang is deported to a country he has not been to since he was a child. I do not see how it would serve his family, nor the economic interest where we have a taxpaying citizen (sic) who is creating job growth and living a life free from any criminal activity.”
Fox reported, “Walz bitterly fought the federal government during Operation Metro Surge, echoing far-left rhetoric that compared ICE agents to Nazis. He referred to agents as President Donald Trump’s ‘modern-day Gestapo,’ which drew a sharp rebuke from then-Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons. Lyons implored Walz to tone down the rhetoric, saying, ‘if the governor doesn’t like the laws, he’s free to advocate that Congress change them, but he should refrain from putting ICE officers in danger by likening them to one of the most appalling groups in history.'”
For the second time this month, the Minnesota Board of Pardons has unanimously granted a pardon for a noncitizen facing potential deportation. https://t.co/wI0UN6RI9c
— KSTP (@KSTP) May 28, 2026
KSTP reported that it was the second such pardon stunt in Minnesota in just weeks. At that time, the board protected “Ricky” Chandee, a Laotian refugee whose circumstances mirrored Vang’s.
Chandee was 18 when he was convicted of assault in 1993, and he has not had any criminal convictions since then. He was up for deportation on May 5, and the Board of Pardons held an emergency meeting on May 4 to grant him clemency.
