Two US courts have told immigration officials they can’t deport Subramanyam Vedam, the 64-year-old Indian-American man who spent forty years behind bars before a judge threw out his murder conviction earlier this year. Vedam came to the US legally from India as a baby, he was just nine months old, grew up in State College, and his dad taught at Penn State.
An immigration judge recently hit pause on his deportation until the Bureau of Immigration Appeals decides if it’ll even review his case. That could drag on for months. Vedam’s lawyers also got a stay from a US District Court in Pennsylvania the same day, but they think the case is probably in limbo for now, since the immigration court already hit the brakes.
Subramanyam Vedam Jailed Wrongfully
His family calls him “Subu.” He’s a legal permanent resident here, and his lawyer says his citizenship application was actually accepted right before he was arrested in 1982 for murder. Prosecutors accused Vedam of killing his friend Thomas Kinser in 1980. He was the last person seen with Kinser, and even though there were no witnesses or motive, he was convicted twice.
In August, a judge tossed out the conviction. Vedam’s lawyers had found new ballistics evidence the prosecutors never shared.
He was supposed to walk out of a Pennsylvania prison on October 3, finally free after forty-three years. Instead, immigration officers grabbed him the minute he stepped out.
Now he’s sitting in a short-term holding centre down in Alexandria, Louisiana. The place even has its own airstrip for deportations. Last week, they shipped him there from central Pennsylvania, his relatives told the Associated Press.
Why ICE Wants To Deport Subramanyam Vedam?
ICE wants to deport Vedam over a decades-old no-contest plea for delivering LSD, a charge from when he was around twenty. His lawyers say the forty years he lost in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, plus the degrees he earned and the inmates he tutored, should count for something and outweigh that old drug case.
But the Department of Homeland Security isn’t budging. A spokesperson said Monday that overturning the murder conviction doesn’t erase the drug conviction.
“Having a single conviction vacated will not stop ICE’s enforcement of the federal immigration law,” Tricia McLaughlin, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, said in an email.
What did Subramanyam Vedam’s family say?
Vedam’s sister said Monday that the family finally feels some relief, now that two different judges have decided Subu shouldn’t be deported while he’s still fighting to reopen his immigration case.
“We’re hopeful the Board of Immigration Appeals will see things the same way,” Saraswathi Vedam said, “because deporting Subu would be another terrible injustice against a man who’s already spent forty-three years in a maximum-security prison for a crime he didn’t commit and who’s lived in the US since he was a baby.”
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