Source: Michael M. Santiago / GettyKey Takeaways
- Subramanyam Vedam’s case: After being exonerated for murder, he was detained by ICE despite his legal residency status.
- Government justification: The administration claims his past drug conviction justifies deportation.
- Legal proceedings: Vedam’s deportation is currently on hold pending appeals in immigration court.
- Family’s hope: His family believes justice will prevail as they await the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision.
Last month, we reported on the story of 64-year-old Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, a Pennsylvania man who spent 43 years in prison for murder before his conviction was overturned and he was set free — only to be immediately detained by ICE agents and set up to be deported to India, a country he moved from when he was an infant.
The government justifies this by saying Vedam’s exoneration for murder doesn’t erase a drug-related crime he was convicted of when he was around 20, indicating, once again, that the Trump administration isn’t concerned with justice and that its immigration crackdown isn’t about ridding the U.S. of dangerous criminals. These people just want brown people gone, as do their constituents, and they’ll take any opportunity to remove anyone they have the power to remove just to keep up pretenses and claim they’re making America great again.
Fortunately, in Vedam’s case, the courts keep getting in the federal government’s way — but for how long?
According to NBC News, Vedam, who is a legal permanent resident of the U.S., is currently detained at a short-term holding center in Alexandria, Louisiana, that’s equipped with an airstrip for deportations. Last week, an immigration judge stayed his deportation until the Bureau of Immigration Appeals decides whether to review his case, which could take several months. The U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania also granted Vedam a stay while his appeal of the immigration court ruling is still pending.
It can’t be emphasized enough that the Trump administration is going through all of this effort to deport a man who was exonerated of the 1980 murder of his friend, and officials are claiming it’s necessary because he was convicted of a non-violent crime more than four decades before his exoneration. There’s no logic or reason to it. The cruelty must be the point.
From NBC:
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to deport Vedam over his no contest plea to charges of LSD delivery, filed when he was about 20. His lawyers argue that the four decades he wrongly spent in prison, where he earned degrees and tutored fellow inmates, should outweigh the drug case.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said Monday that the reversal in the murder case does not negate the drug conviction.
“Having a single conviction vacated will not stop ICE’s enforcement of the federal immigration law,” Tricia McLaughlin,” Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, said in an email.
McLaughlin, as usual, is illustrating the callousness of this administration, offering a cold, substanceless statement that conveniently glosses over the fact that the “single conviction” that was vacated was a murder conviction for which Vedam spent nearly his entire adult life in prison, and that he wasn’t even allowed to enjoy a full day of freedom before he was imprisoned again. Last month, an ICE rep had that same energy when they accused Vedam of being a “career criminal with a rap sheet dating back to 1980,” as well as “a convicted controlled substance trafficker,” which is obviously a propagandist’s way of describing a single conviction for a single drug offense.
Still, Vedam’s family is hopeful that he will win in the end.
In fact, his sister, Saraswathi Vedam, said Monday that the family is relieved “that two different judges have agreed that Subu’s deportation is unwarranted while his effort to reopen his immigration case is still pending.”
“We’re also hopeful that the Board of Immigration Appeals will ultimately agree that Subu’s deportation would represent another untenable injustice inflicted on a man who not only endured 43 years in a maximum-security prison for a crime he didn’t commit but has also lived in the U.S. since he was 9 months old,” Saraswathi said.
Well, here’s hoping.
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