US courts block deportation of Indian man wrongly imprisoned for 43 years

Two separate courts have ordered immigration officials not to deport an Indian-origin man who spent four decades in prison before his murder conviction was overturned.

Subramanyam Vedam, 64, is currently detained at a short-term holding centre in Alexandria, Louisiana, that's equipped with an airstrip for deportations. Vedam, known as 'Subu', was transferred there from central Pennsylvania last week, relatives said.

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 case may be on hold given the immigration court ruling.

Vedam came to the US legally from India as an infant and grew up in State College, where his father taught at Penn State. He was serving a life sentence in a friend's 1980 death before his conviction was overturned this year.

He was released from state prison on October 3, only to be taken straight into immigration custody.

The Bureau of 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 inmates, should outweigh the drug case.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said on Monday that the reversal in the murder case does not negate 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 said on Monday that the family is relieved “that two different judges have agreed that Subu's deportation is unwarranted while his effort to re-open his immigration case is still pending".

“We're also hopeful that Board of Immigration Appeals will ultimately agree that Subu's deportation would represent another untenable injustice 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 9-months-old," Saraswathi Vedam said.