Subu Vedam was exonerated a year ago. Family, supporters are still calling for his freedom

Nearly a year after a State College man saw his murder conviction vacated, his family and dozens of supporters gathered Thursday at the Allen Street Gates with a simple message: He should be home.

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam, a 65-year-old fighting to walk free in the U.S. for the first time since 1982, remains at the Moshannon Valley Processing Center despite an immigration judge’s ruling that rejected the government’s subsequent attempt to deport him.

Saraswathi Vedam told the crowd that decades of separation have taken a lasting toll and later told the Centre Daily Times that the past year has been “a roller coaster.”

“It shouldn’t be this hard, and it shouldn’t take 43 years,” she said. “When people are targeted and railroaded, the consequences reverberate and they last and they have lasting harm.”

She described recently opening letters her late mother had saved throughout Vedam’s imprisonment, many of which she said either expressed shock that he was accused of murder or were messages of support.

The family’s hope is that those interactions become easier, part of a future in which Vedam can visit people, make his own phone calls and otherwise enjoy experiences that have been out of reach for decades.

“Like Rip Van Winkle, he will rejoin a different world than the one Subu and I grew up in — before internet, before smartphones, before all the things that we have that keep us connected,” she said. “We’ve got a whole lifetime to catch up on.”

Vedam staved off deportation to India when an immigration judge found he earned the right to remain in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security then appealed the decision, effectively keeping Vedam locked up indefinitely while the process unfolds.

Vedam has spent much of the past year at the immigration detention center just outside of Philipsburg, which followed 43 years of imprisonment at Huntingdon state prison on a since-vacated murder conviction. He is one of the 25 longest-serving exonerees in U.S. history.

Against the backdrop of a large sign that read “LET SUBU COME HOME,” roughly four dozen people listened as speakers recounted the past 44 years. State Rep. Paul Takac and Borough Council members Nalini Krishnankutty, Kevin Kassab and Gopal Balachandran were among those in attendance.

State College Mayor Ezra Nanes said Vedam’s ongoing detention is an “injustice piled on top of injustice.”

“Let Subu come home,” Nanes said to applause. “Let him come home. The government needs to let him come home now. The time has come for that.”

State College Mayor Ezra Nanes speaks during a vigil held for Subu Vedam marking one year since his exoneration on Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026 in State College.

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