Quoting Rhonin_the_wizard,
Yes. Minors do not build colony ships. But if they received one either from ideology or trade they will use it.
They can also get them from exploring anomalies, though, since they don't start out with a Survey Ship (and won't generally research the tech on their own), that avenue is pretty rare.
But, yeah, I've seen Minors colonize additional worlds for at least 4-5 months now. Don't remember where it first started showing up. It's just pretty rare because their avenues to getting a "gift" colony ship are fairly narrow.
