An oversight panel’s ruling vacated the deportation order for Subu Vedam, the State College resident who spent more than 40 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned. He was taken into custody by immigration authorities immediately after his release.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals restores Vedam’s permanent residency status and stops Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) bid to remove him from the country. His case will return to immigration court.

Immigration judge Paul McCloskey described it as “an exceptional situation,” given the facts that there was prosecutorial misconduct in the original trials and the overturned murder conviction.

When released from the State Correctional Institution at Huntingdon in October, Vedam was detained and taken to the Moshannon Valley Processing Center near Philipsburg. He was then moved to a facility in Louisiana and was awaiting transportation to Texas, where he would have faced deportation.

Now, Vedam is back in the Moshannon Valley ICE Processing Center in Clearfield County after the order was vacated, and he will wait while his case is transferred to another immigration judge. His attorneys plan to seek his release on bond.