U.S. Courts Halt Deportation of Indian-Origin Man After Overturned Murder Conviction

Two separate U.S. courts have issued orders preventing the deportation of Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, a 64-year-old Indian-origin man who spent more than four decades in prison before his murder conviction was overturned earlier this year.

Vedam, who is currently held at a short-term immigration detention facility in Alexandria, Louisiana—a centre equipped with its own deportation airstrip—was transferred there last week from central Pennsylvania, according to family members.

On Thursday, an immigration judge granted a stay on his deportation until the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) decides whether to review his case, a process that could take several months. The same day, Vedam’s attorneys also obtained a separate stay from the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, though that case is expected to remain on hold in light of the immigration court’s ruling.

Born in India and brought legally to the United States as an infant, Vedam grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, where his father was a professor at Penn State University. He was convicted in the 1980 death of a friend and sentenced to life imprisonment, a conviction that was vacated earlier this year after new evidence and legal scrutiny revealed flaws in the original case.

Vedam was released from state prison on October 3, only to be immediately taken into immigration custody. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now seeking to deport him on the basis of a decades-old drug case—a no contest plea to charges of LSD delivery filed when he was around 20 years old.

His lawyers argue that the 43 years he wrongfully spent in prison, during which he earned academic degrees and tutored fellow inmates, should weigh heavily against the outdated drug charge.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, however, maintained that the overturned murder conviction does not nullify the drug-related offence.

“Having a single conviction vacated will not stop ICE’s enforcement of federal immigration law,” said Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, in an emailed statement.

Vedam’s sister, Saraswathi Vedam, welcomed the court decisions, saying the family was relieved that “two different judges have agreed that Subu’s deportation is unwarranted while his effort to re-open his immigration case remains pending.”

She added:

“We are hopeful that the Board of Immigration Appeals will ultimately agree that deporting Subu would be yet another grave injustice to a man who endured 43 years in a maximum-security prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and who has lived in the U.S. since he was just nine months old.”

If you’d like, I can also prepare a shorter news-desk version (about 250 words) suitable for online publication or a feature-style version focusing on the human-interest aspect of Vedam’s ordeal. Would you like me to do that?