Two different courts have called on immigration officials to halt deportation of a Pennsylvania man who spent more than 40 years in prison for a murder conviction that was recently overturned.
Subramanyam Vedam, 64, was brought to the United States by his parents when he was nine months old. Vedam is a legal permanent resident, and according to his lawyer, had his citizenship application accepted prior to his arrest in 1982. He is known by his relatives as “Subu”, per the Associated Press.
He is currently being held in a short-term center in Alexandria, Louisiana, which is equipped with an airstrip for deportations.
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 US district court in Pennsylvania but said that case may be on hold given the immigration court ruling.
Vedam was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1983 and received an additional sentence of two-and-a-half to five years for a drug offense a year later, as part of a plea deal that was to be served simultaneously with his life sentence.
He has maintained his innocence in the murder case throughout his time in prison and his conviction was overturned this year. He was released from state prison on 3 October only to be taken straight into immigration custody.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport Vedam over his no contest plea to charges of LSD delivery, filed when he was about 20. His lawyers argue that the four decades he wrongly spent in prison, where he earned degrees and tutored fellow prisoners, should outweigh the drug case.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said on Monday that the reversal in the murder case does not cancel 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.
Vedam’s sister and lawyers argued that his stay in jail for over four decades negates the drug charge.
“We’re also hopeful that Board of Immigration Appeals will ultimately agree that Subu’s deportation would represent another untenable injustice,” Saraswathi Vedam said, “inflicted on a man who not only endured 43 years in a maximum-security prison for a crime he didn’t commit, but has also lived in the US since he was nine months old.”
