The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is unleashing fury at Minnesota officials after the state’s Board of Pardons unanimously granted clemency to a Laotian national with three violent assault convictions. DHS warns this move could block a decades-old deportation order that should have removed him years ago.
Xayasounethone Chandee entered the United States as a legal permanent resident when he was a minor. But in 1992, he was convicted of assault. Then, an immigration judge issued a final removal order in 1995.
Despite that order, Chandee remained in the country. In 2008, he struck again—two felony counts of aggravated assault with a weapon. DHS says the pardon now threatens to erase those convictions that made him deportable in the first place.
“The Minnesota Board of Pardons’ unanimous decision pardoning an illegal alien convicted of three violent assaults is absolute INSANITY,” fumed DHS acting assistant secretary Lauren Bis. “Chandee lost his green card following his convictions. He was placed in removal proceedings and issued a final order of removal by a judge.”
“Minnesota's sanctuary politicians' pardon took away this violent thug’s qualifying convictions that made him removable from the U.S.,” she added. The message is blunt: a visa or green card is a privilege, not a right.
“When you break our laws, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country,” DHS declared. Now, a state board’s decision has thrown that entire principle into chaos—and ignited a firestorm between state and federal authorities.
