PHILADELPHIA — After waiting more than four decades to be cleared of the 1980 murder of a friend, Subramaniam Vedam was scheduled to walk out of a Pennsylvania prison this month.
Vidam and Thomas Kinser were 19-year-old faculty members at Pennsylvania State University. Vidam was the last person seen with Kinser and was twice convicted of his murder, although there were no witnesses or motive.
In August, a judge overturned the conviction after Vaidham’s lawyers found new ballistics evidence that prosecutors had never disclosed.
As his sister prepared to bring him home on October 3, the slender, white-haired Vidam was instead taken into federal custody under a 1999 deportation order. The 64-year-old, who legally came to the United States from India when he was 9 months old, faces another uphill legal battle.
Amid the Trump administration’s focus on… Mass deportationVidam’s attorney must convince the immigration court that his 1980s drug conviction should be outweighed by the years he wrongly spent in prison. For some time, immigration law has allowed people who have reformed their lives to request such exemptions. Vidam never pursued it due to his murder conviction.
“He suffered extreme injustice,” immigration attorney Ava Benash said. “(And) those 43 years are not a blank slate. He had a wonderful experience in prison.”
Vaidam He earned several degrees behind bars, taught hundreds of fellow prisoners and served nearly half a century for just one violation, involving rice brought in from abroad.
His lawyers hope immigration judges will consider his case in its entirety. The administration, in a briefing note filed Friday, opposes these efforts. So Vaidham remains at a 1,800-bed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in central Pennsylvania.
“Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the United States,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email about the issue.
After his initial conviction was overturned, Vidham faced an unusual set of questions at his 1988 retrial.
“Mr. Vaidam, where were you born?” Center District Prosecutor Ray Gricar he asked. “How many times will you return to India?
“During your teenage years, did you ever meditate?”
Gopal Balachandran, the Penn State law professor who won the overturn, believes the questions were intended to alienate him from the all-white jury, which returned a second guilty verdict.
Vedam’s family was among the first Indian families in the region known as “Happy Valley,” where his father came as a postdoctoral fellow in 1956. An older daughter was born in State College, but “Subu,” as he was known, was born when the family returned to India in 1961.
They returned to State College for good before his first birthday, and became the family that welcomed new members of the Indian diaspora to the city.
“They were fully engaged,” said Sister Saraswathi Vedam, 68, a midwifery professor in Vancouver, British Columbia. “My father loved the university. My mother was a librarian, and she helped set up the library.”
While leaving to attend college in Massachusetts, Sopo was drawn into the counterculture of the late 1970s, growing his hair long and using drugs while taking classes at Penn State.
One day in December 1980, Vidim asked Kincer for a ride to nearby Louisbourg to buy drugs. Kinser was never seen again, although his truck was found outside his apartment. Nine months later, hikers found his body in a wooded area miles away.
Vidam was arrested on drug charges during the police investigation, and was eventually charged with murder. He was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. To resolve the drug case, he pleaded no contest to four counts of selling LSD and one count of theft. A 1988 retrial provided no relief from his situation.
Although the defense had long questioned the ballistics evidence in the case, the jury, which heard that Vidham bought a .25-caliber handgun from someone, never heard that the FBI report indicated the bullet wound was too small to have been fired from that gun. Balachandran only found this report while researching the case in 2023.
After hearings on the case, a Center County judge overturned the conviction and the district attorney decided this month not to retry the case.
Benash, an immigration attorney, often represents clients who are trying to remain in the United States despite a prior offense. However, she considers the Vaidham case “truly exceptional” given the constitutional violations it involves.
“Forty-three years of wrongful imprisonment is more than restitution for possession with intent to distribute LSD when he was 20,” she said.
Vidam could spend several more months in custody before the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to reopen the case. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a brief statement Friday that the clock ran out years ago.
“He has presented no evidence or argument to show that he was diligent in pursuing his rights regarding his immigration status,” Assistant Chief Counsel Katherine B. Frisch wrote.
Saraswathi Vedam is saddened by the latest delay, but said her brother remains patient.
“He, more than anyone else, knows that sometimes things don’t make sense,” she said. “You just have to stay on track and keep hoping that truth, justice, mercy and kindness will prevail.”