Overview
- An immigration judge stayed removal until the Board of Immigration Appeals decides whether to take the case, a process that could take months, and a U.S. district judge issued a parallel stay the same day.
- Vedam, 64, was released on Oct. 3 after about 43 years in prison when a Pennsylvania court vacated his 1983 murder conviction.
- ICE is pursuing deportation based on a decades-old no-contest plea to LSD delivery that Vedam entered when he was about 20.
- DHS official Tricia McLaughlin said the vacated murder conviction does not negate the drug conviction that underpins ICE’s enforcement.
- Vedam, a lawful permanent resident brought to the U.S. as an infant, remains in federal detention at a short-term center in Alexandria, Louisiana, as his lawyers seek relief.