Courts and Due Process

An immigration judge in Elizabeth, New Jersey has denied bond to 64‑year‑old Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, a Pennsylvania man who spent 43 years in prison for a 1980 murder before his conviction was overturned last August, ruling he must remain in ICE custody while he fights a decades‑old deportation order. Vedam, who came legally from India to State College as an infant and whose late father was a Penn State professor, was taken straight from state prison into federal detention on a 1990s LSD‑delivery conviction that now makes him deportable. Judge Tamar Wilson said detention is mandatory under the drug‑felony statute and agreed with DHS that he still poses a public‑safety risk, rejecting defense arguments that the offense was minor, over 40 years old, and that he had been a 'model prisoner.' The Board of Immigration Appeals has nonetheless agreed to hear his challenge to the 1999 removal order as an 'exceptional' case, even as he remains in an 1,800‑bed ICE facility in central Pennsylvania. Supporters, including a Centre County prosecutor and the mayor of State College, listened to the hearing remotely, while his sister says the family is 'resolved' to keep fighting to bring him home rather than see him deported after a wrongful conviction stole most of his life.