Why US wants to deport Indian man freed after wrongful 43 years in jail

Freed after 43 years in a wrongful murder conviction, Indian-origin man Subu Vedam now faces deportation under a decades-old US immigration order

An Indian-origin man from Pennsylvania, Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, who was released earlier this month after spending 43 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over a decades-old deportation order.

 

Former Obama administration official Tommy Vietor expressed frustration on social media, writing, “Man spends 44 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Finally gets exonerated. ICE immediately arrests him and is trying to deport him back to India, where he hasn’t lived since he was 9 months old.”

 

Another social media user, Mike Young, wrote, “Deporting a man who proved his innocence after half a century isn’t a strength. It’s cowardice hiding behind paperwork.”

 

 

What happened in the Subramanyam Vedam case?

 

Subu Vedam, 64, walked out of Pennsylvania’s Huntingdon State Correctional Institution on October 3 after spending over four decades behind bars for a murder he did not commit. However, his freedom was short-lived as ICE, under a “legacy deportation order”, detained him soon after his release.

 

Vedam’s ordeal began in 1982 when he was arrested for the alleged murder of his friend, 19-year-old Thomas Kinser, in Centre County. Prosecutors claimed Subu shot Kinser with a .25-calibre pistol, though the weapon was never found and the case rested entirely on circumstantial evidence. He was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

 

Born in India, Subu arrived in the United States as an infant. For 43 years, he remained incarcerated for the murder of his friend until the Pennsylvania Innocence Project unearthed crucial undisclosed evidence in 2022. The files from the Centre County District Attorney’s Office included an FBI report and handwritten notes suggesting the bullet retrieved from Kinser’s skull was too small to have been fired from a .25-calibre weapon. 

 

How was the conviction overturned?

 

In September 2025, District Attorney Bernie Cantorna dismissed all murder charges against Vedam, saying a retrial would be “unjust and impossible.” Vedam became the longest-serving exoneree in Pennsylvania’s history, according to reports in the Miami Herald, when he walked free on October 3.

 

ICE said in a statement that Vedam’s detention stems from his “criminal past.” Before his arrest for murder, he had pleaded guilty at age 19 to intent to distribute LSD. His family said it was a youthful mistake. Because Vedam was serving a life sentence, he was never deported then. With his exoneration, ICE has now reactivated the decades-old deportation order linked to that earlier case.

 

Immigration rights groups in the United States have since rallied in his support, calling for the deportation order to be rescinded.

 

What are the new US immigration rules on deportation?

 

The case comes amid a broader tightening of US immigration rules. On August 15, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued new guidance to officers on assessing whether applicants meet the long-standing requirement of demonstrating “good moral character.”

 

In what officials describe as part of a stricter enforcement approach, the Trump administration introduced a “catch and revoke” policy allowing authorities to cancel visas of foreign nationals — including green card holders, students, and visitors — for even minor infractions.

 

“Whenever the government catches non-US citizens breaking our laws, we will take action to revoke their status,” said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on X, calling a visa “a privilege, not a right.”

 

What does the new policy mean for immigrants?

 

The policy, first announced on April 30, 2025, in a newsletter written by Rubio, states that immigrants convicted of offences such as domestic violence or assault could lose their legal status. However, it does not clearly define the range of crimes that could trigger visa revocation.

 

“They stripped student visas from people for speeding tickets,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council in a statement. “Now they’re suggesting they’ll do the same to everyone.”

 

Reichlin-Melnick also shared that “the Trump administration implied in court that if they could deport every noncitizen ticketed for speeding — even if the ticket is later dismissed — they would, and the only thing stopping them right now is ‘capacity.’”