New Delhi: Two US courts have ordered immigration officials not to deport Subramanyam Vedam, the 64-year-old Indian-origin man who spent four decades in prison before his murder conviction was overturned earlier this year. Vedam was nine months old when he came to the US with his parents legally from India. He grew up in State College, where his father taught at Penn State. An immigration judge stayed his deportation on Thursday until the Bureau of Immigration Appeals decides whether to review his case. That could take several months. Vedam's lawyers also got a stay the same day in the US District Court in Pennsylvania but said that the case may be on hold given the immigration court ruling. The real life of Indian-born Subramaniam (Subu) Vedam is nothing short of a movie story. His family was filled with tears of joy when he was finally released after 43 years in a US prison. But within minutes, this freedom was snatched away. Immediately after his release, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained him and initiated the deportation process back to India. Now, he is being sent back to the country he left at just 9 months old. An Old Order from the 1980s Becomes a Problem ICE showed Vedam an old deportation order from the 1980s related to his drug case. At the time, he was a teenager and was convicted of possessing and selling LSD (a narcotic drug). Although he has now been acquitted of the false murder case from 1980, the drug case remains on his record. The murder case that robbed Vedam of 43 years... In 1980, the body of a young man named Thomas Kinser was found in Pennsylvania, USA. Police charged Subramaniam with murder without any concrete evidence. There were no witnesses, no weapons... Yet, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1983. He was denied bail because the court ruled he was a foreigner and could flee. His passport and green card were confiscated. The truth came out in 2022 Forty-three years later, in 2022, the case took a turn when an FBI report, which the prosecution had suppressed, surfaced. This report clearly stated that the bullet used in the murder was not a .25 caliber, even though the government's entire case hinged on this. A team of lawyers led by Penn State University law professor Gopal Balachandran discovered these hidden documents. The judge later admitted that if this evidence had been presented earlier, the jury's verdict might have been different. Released in 2025 At hearings in January and February 2025, forensic experts demolished the state's entire case. In August 2025, the court vacated the sentence, and in October 2025, the district attorney withdrew the case entirely. Subramaniam Vedam was thus declared America's longest-serving exoneree. He earned three degrees while in prison, including a 4.0 GPA in his MBA (the first in 150 years). But then his freedom was snatched away. Minutes after his release, ICE agents recaptured him. Now he is being held at the Moshannon Valley Detention Center in Pennsylvania, where about 60 other inmates are held. He can speak to his family somewhat more freely by phone than before. From there, he sent a message to his family, "My name has been cleared. I am no longer a prisoner, but a detainee." The Family's New Battle His niece, Zoe Miller-Vedam, says that if he is deported to India, he will have no one there. He has lived here since he was 9 months old. He needs our support to readjust to the modern world. His lawyer, Ava Benak, has filed a petition in immigration court to reopen the case to prevent deportation. During this time, Vedam's mother died in 2016 and his father in 2009. Both passed away hoping for their son's release. Freedom Still Elapsed After 43 Years of Imprisonment Legally, he is innocent, but ICE custody has imprisoned him again. In one sense, he is free, and in another, he remains imprisoned. The fight for his true freedom is still pending. A fight that began 43 years ago with a false accusation.
