A coordinated campaign by federal and New Jersey officials to force Cuba to surrender Assata Shakur has intensified during the first months of the second Trump administration. The effort combines a New Jersey legislative resolution, a new bill in Congress, public statements by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the State Department’s decision to cite Cuba’s refusal to return U.S. fugitives as a counterterrorism issue.
The campaign is not an attempt to discover Shakur’s whereabouts. Her residence in Havana has been public knowledge for decades. It is an effort to make the revocation of her asylum and her extradition to the United States a test of U.S.–Cuba relations.
New Jersey renews its demand
The latest state-level effort began in September 2024, when New Jersey lawmakers introduced Assembly Resolution 151. The resolution urges the Cuban government to extradite Shakur, who was born Joanne Chesimard, and asks the federal government to continue pressing Cuba for her return. Its text repeats the state’s account of the 1973 New Jersey Turnpike shooting in which State Trooper Werner Foerster was killed and frames Shakur’s continued asylum as an unresolved obligation to law enforcement.
Assemblyman Michael Inganamort, one of the resolution’s sponsors, described the measure as an attempt to keep pressure on both Washington and Havana. The resolution did not create new legal authority, but it supplied a state political mandate for the broader campaign that followed.
Congress turns extradition into Cuba policy
In March 2025, Senators Rick Scott of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas introduced the Frank Connor and Trooper Werner Foerster Justice Act. Their proposal calls for the immediate extradition of Shakur, Puerto Rican independence activist William Morales and other people whom the United States says Cuba has sheltered.
The bill links individual extradition demands to the larger U.S. policy of economic and diplomatic pressure against Cuba. In announcing it, Scott said the Cuban government should be held accountable for providing refuge to people sought by U.S. authorities. The legislation would turn longstanding demands involving Shakur into an explicit part of congressional policy toward Havana.
Rubio makes the case a test for Havana
The pressure escalated in May. On May 3, Rubio wrote that Cuba continued to provide refuge to people sought in the United States and promised to hold the Cuban government accountable. Reporting on the statement identified Shakur as a central subject of the renewed demand.
Ten days later, Rubio designated Cuba as a country that had “not fully cooperated” with U.S. counterterrorism efforts during 2024. The State Department cited Havana’s refusal to discuss the return of several U.S. fugitives, including Shakur. A senior department official said the administration would not ignore what it considered safe haven for fugitives and people accused of terrorism.
The designation adds diplomatic weight to a campaign that already includes a continuing federal reward of up to $1 million for information leading to Shakur’s apprehension. New Jersey authorities have separately offered a reward, bringing the total historically advertised amount to $2 million.
A conviction that remains contested
Shakur was convicted in 1977 of murder and assault arising from the 1973 Turnpike confrontation. She has always denied shooting Foerster. Her supporters point to trial evidence showing no gunshot residue on her hands and medical testimony that the wounds to her arms were consistent with her hands being raised and would have made it extremely difficult for her to fire a weapon. After escaping from prison in 1979, she reached Cuba, where the government granted her political asylum in 1984.
The FBI later placed Shakur on its Most Wanted Terrorists list, making her the first woman added to that list. The designation and reward continue to present the case as a law-enforcement pursuit. Shakur and her supporters describe her as a political exile targeted through the federal government’s campaign against Black liberation movements.
A campaign for extradition, not discovery
The recent measures do not identify a new location, new evidence or a new avenue for arrest. Instead, they coordinate pressure from Trenton, Congress and the State Department around a demand Cuba has rejected for decades: surrendering a person to whom it granted asylum.
By linking Shakur’s case to Cuba’s terrorism designation and to legislation directed at Havana, the administration and its allies are attempting to increase the political cost of continuing that asylum. As of May 20, Cuba has given no public indication that it will reverse its position, and U.S. officials have announced no operational breakthrough. What has changed is the intensity and coordination of the campaign against one of the best-known political exiles from the Black liberation movement.
