Amid reports that federal immigration officials are accelerating the deportation process of Lue Yang, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has pardoned the Hmong refugee. The governor called him “a devoted family man and respected leader in Michigan’s Hmong community.”
Yang, 47, a father of six from St. Johns, was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in July. ICE cites a decades-old conviction for attempted second-degree home invasion, a crime committed when he was 19.
Michigan courts have since expunged that record under the state’s Clean Slate law, but federal immigration rules still treat it as grounds for removal…