ICE Detention and Deportation

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 on a murder conviction that was overturned last August, ruling he must remain in ICE custody while he fights deportation. Vedam, who came legally from India to State College, Pennsylvania as an infant and whose late father was a Penn State professor, now faces removal based on a decades‑old LSD delivery conviction that pre‑dated the murder case; his lawyer argues he likely would have become a U.S. citizen by the early 1990s if not wrongfully imprisoned. The Board of Immigration Appeals has agreed to hear his challenge to a 1999 deportation order, calling the case "exceptional," but Judge Tamar Wilson found detention mandatory under the drug felony and alternatively agreed with DHS that he remains a public‑safety risk despite his record as a "model prisoner." Supporters—including a Centre County prosecutor and the mayor of State College—listened to the hearing remotely as Vedam’s sister said the family is "resolved" to keep fighting to bring him home, after ICE took him directly into federal custody when he walked out of state prison on Oct. 3. Vedam is being held at an 1,800‑bed ICE facility in central Pennsylvania as his appeal moves forward, in a case that spotlights how Trump‑era deportation priorities treat long‑time legal residents with vacated convictions.