Washington, D.C., USA: Two American courts have temporarily stopped immigration authorities from deporting Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, a 64-year-old Indian-origin man who spent over 43 years in prison before his wrongful murder conviction was overturned earlier this year.
Vedam, who arrived legally in the United States from India as an infant, grew up in State College, Pennsylvania, where his father served as a professor at Penn State University. Having spent nearly his entire life in America, Vedam was a lawful permanent resident at the time of his arrest in the early 1980s.
In August 2025, a Pennsylvania court overturned his 1983 conviction for the murder of a friend, ruling that critical ballistic evidence had been concealed during his initial trial. Vedam was finally released from state custody in October after spending more than four decades behind bars.
Shortly after his release, however, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained him based on an old deportation order tied to a 1984 drug-related plea that had run concurrently with his life sentence. That decades-old order prompted new deportation proceedings, which could have resulted in his removal to India — a country he has not lived in since he was an infant.
Vedam’s lawyers swiftly filed emergency motions to stop his deportation, arguing that sending him away would represent a “second injustice” against a man already wrongfully imprisoned for most of his life. They asserted that he should not face additional punishment for charges that have already been dismissed and that he deserves the opportunity to rebuild his life in the only nation he truly knows.
On Monday, a U.S. immigration judge issued a stay halting his deportation while the Board of Immigration Appeals reviews his case. Later, a federal district court in Pennsylvania reaffirmed that stay, instructing ICE not to proceed with removal until further hearings are completed.
ICE declined to comment on the ongoing legal matter but clarified that the deportation proceedings stem from the drug conviction, not the vacated murder charge. The agency stated it is obligated to enforce standing removal orders unless directed otherwise by a court.
Vedam remains detained at an immigration facility in Louisiana while his legal team works to have the outdated deportation order revoked and his permanent residency reinstated.
For the Indian American community, Vedam’s situation underscores the complex intersection of wrongful convictions and immigration law, sparking broader debate over whether the justice system can truly right the wrongs done to a man imprisoned for a crime he did not commit — and now threatened with exile from the country he calls home.
