November 5, 2025
ICE has been barred from deporting a man whose murder conviction was overturned after he served 43 years of a life sentence.
Two courts have ruled that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) cannot deport a Pennsylvania man whose murder conviction was overturned after he spent 43 years in prison.
Subramanyam Vedam, 64, was released from prison on Oct. 3 after his conviction was overturned, AP reported. A legal permanent resident who came to the U.S. as an infant, Vedam had been sentenced to life for a friend’s 1980 death. Immediately upon release, he was taken into immigration custody at a short-term holding center in Alexandria, Louisiana, that’s equipped with an airstrip for deportations.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport Vedam over a no-contest plea to LSD delivery charges from when he was around 20. His lawyers argue that the four decades he wrongfully spent in prison, during which he earned degrees and tutored fellow inmates, should outweigh the old drug case.
On Oct. 30, an immigration judge temporarily blocked Vedam’s deportation while the Bureau of Immigration Appeals decides whether to review his case, a process that could take several months. Vedam’s lawyers also obtained a stay in the U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania the same day, though that case may be paused due to the immigration court ruling.
On Nov. 3, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson stated that the overturning of Vedam’s murder conviction does not affect his prior 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, wrote in an email.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in an email that “Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S,” despite Vedam being a legal permanent resident who came to the U.S. at 9 months old with his dad, who worked as a professor at Penn State.
Vedam, known as “Subu,” got caught up in the late-1970s counterculture while studying at Penn State, experimenting with drugs and growing his hair long. In December 1980, he asked Thomas Kinser, a fellow son of a Penn State professor, for a ride to buy drugs; Kinser disappeared, and his body was found nine months later.
Vedam was arrested on drug charges and ultimately convicted of murder in 1983, receiving a life sentence without parole. He also pleaded no contest to four LSD sales counts and a theft charge. A 1988 retrial offered no relief, despite defense challenges to ballistics evidence, which the jury never saw — an FBI report suggested the bullet couldn’t have come from Vedam’s gun.
In 2023, Penn State law professor Gopal Balachandran uncovered the report while reviewing the case. Following hearings, a Centre County judge overturned Vedam’s conviction, and the district attorney recently declined to retry the case.
As he sits inside an ICE facility, Vedam’s family expressed relief, with his sister, Saraswathi Vedam, saying, “We’re grateful that two different judges have agreed Subu’s deportation is unwarranted while his effort to reopen his immigration case is still pending.”
“We’re also hopeful that the 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 U.S. since he was 9 months old,” Saraswathi Vedam said.
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