Indian national detained by ICE upon release from 43 years of wrongful imprisonment

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers immediately took an Indian national into custody on Oct. 3 after he left a Pennsylvania prison, where he spent more than four decades behind bars for a murder he did not commit.

Release and detainment: On Aug. 28, Centre County Judge Jonathan Grine overturned 64-year-old Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam’s murder conviction after finding that prosecutors had violated his due process rights. Centre County District Attorney Bernie Cantorna then dismissed all charges on Oct. 2, clearing the way for Vedam’s release from Huntingdon State Correctional Institution the following morning. However, ICE officers acting on a 1988 deportation order were already waiting to detain him. He was then transferred to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Clearfield County, the state’s largest immigrant detention facility.

A lengthy legal battle: Vedam, a legal permanent resident who arrived in the U.S. as an infant in 1962, was 20 when he was arrested for allegedly killing his friend Thomas Kinser, 19, in 1980. His 1983 conviction and life sentence without parole were based on circumstantial evidence that included his purchase of a .25-caliber handgun, though investigators never found the weapon. In 2022, lawyers with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which joined his defense team, uncovered suppressed evidence in the district attorney’s files, including an FBI report that showed the bullet wound in Kinser’s skull was inconsistent with a .25-caliber bullet.

After 43 years of imprisonment, Vedam is now Pennsylvania’s longest-serving exoneree. While behind bars, he completed three degrees — including a master’s degree, a first in the facility’s 150-year history — and taught literacy to hundreds of inmates.

What his family is saying: Saraswathi Vedam, Vedam’s sister, linked the detention directly to his overturned conviction. “This immigration matter is a remnant of Subu’s original murder conviction which has now been overturned,” she said. The family has asked the immigration court to reopen his case now that he has been exonerated. His niece, Zoë Miller Vedam, highlighted the disconnect between Vedam and the country of his birth. “He left India when he was 9 months old. None of us can remember our lives at nine months old,” she told the Miami Herald. Deporting him at 64 “would be just extending the harm of his wrongful incarceration,” she added.

Mike Truppa, a family spokesperson, said relatives are “emotionally reeling from the fact that he could be sent to a country he doesn’t know” even though all of Vedam’s family members are U.S. citizens living in the U.S. and Canada.

What ICE is saying: In a statement, ICE referred to Vedam as “a career criminal with a rap sheet dating back to 1980” and “a convicted controlled substance trafficker.” The agency cited a deportation order linked to his conviction for intent to distribute LSD at age 19 and a 1982 misdemeanor marijuana possession charge. ICE said it is proceeding with “his removal in accordance with all applicable laws and due-process requirements.”

Vedam’s immigration attorney, Ava Benach, disputed the agency’s characterization, noting the charges occurred when he was a teen were for small amounts of LSD. She contended that “without the wrongful murder conviction, Subu would likely have been successful in defending himself in deportation proceedings decades ago.”

Vedam’s legal team has filed motions to reopen his immigration case and stay deportation, with the government’s response due Oct. 24.