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New York

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for New York.

2,078Documented
40In custody
1,023Released
12Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in New York

Where New York’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1930s 714 1940s 176 1970s 171 1920s 166 1910s 166 1950s 159

Documented cases

2,078 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Martin Leonel Perez Castro
In Custody
Martin Leonel Perez Castro alias Richard, 53, commander of the FARC 30th Front in Colombia, was sentenced Nove...
Rev. Joy Powell
In Custody
Joy Powell was Pentecostal pastor from Rochester New York, who was the top community voice against violence an...
Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales
In Custody
Francisco Javier Roman-Bardales was arrested by Mexican authorities on March 17, 2025 and transferred to Unite...
Joshua Schulte
In Custody
Joshua Schulte was a former hacker employed by the CIA who leaked two billion pages of secret CIA data, known...
Salem Seleiman
In Custody
Salem Seleiman, 30, was sentenced December 4, 2025 to 24 months New York state prison for the May 20, 2021 ant...
Christopher Tindal
In Custody
Christopher Tindal is a Rochester, New York father who was arrested in May 2020 in connection with the arson o...
Ravi Ragbir
Released
Ravi Ragbir is an immigrant-rights organizer with New Sanctuary Coalition. ICE detained him at a routine check...
Jean Montrevil
Released
Jean Montrevil is a Haitian immigrant-rights organizer and co-founder of New Sanctuary Coalition. ICE detained...
C. L. R. James
Released
C. L. R. James was a Trinidadian historian, Marxist theorist and anti-colonial organizer. U.S. immigration aut...
Joseph Ganghofer
Joseph Ganghofer was a Bavarian hotel owner who came to the United States on a visitor’s visa in March 1935 af...
Ernst Toller
Ernst Toller was a German revolutionary dramatist and member of International Red Aid and the League Against I...
Farouk Abdel-Muhti
Released
Farouk Abdel-Muhti was a Palestinian human-rights activist and longtime WBAI radio programmer in New York City...
Salih Ali Abdullah
Released
Salih Ali Abdullah was one of the four young Sunni Muslim men who became known as the Williamsburg Four after...
Nehanda Abiodun
In Exile
Nehanda Abiodun, born Cheri Laverne Dalton in Manhattan on June 29, 1950, was a New Afrikan organizer associat...
Jacob Abrams
Released
Jacob Abrams was a Russian-Jewish anarchist bookbinder and lead defendant in the landmark First Amendment case...
Mark Adams
Released
Mark Adams, a long-term Occupy Wall Street organizer, was widely identified by the movement as OWS's first sen...
Akil Al-Jundi
Released
Akil Al-Jundi (born Herbert Scott Dean in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands) was sentenced to life for murder in...
Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali
Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali was held in federal custody in New York in the prosecution arising from the1998...
Mohamed Albanna
Released
Mohamed Albanna, an American citizen from Yemen, was arrested in 2006 for illegally sending large amounts of m...
Jane Alpert
Released
Jane Alpert was a New York radical — and later a radical-feminist writer — who took part in a 1969 campaign th...
Jose Gabriel Alvarez-Ortiz
Released
Jose Gabriel Alvarez-Ortiz, age 26, ELN member; detained in late 2020. Extradited and prosecuted in the Southe...
John Amidon
Released
John Amidon is a Marine Corps veteran and longtime Albany, New York peace organizer. He has served as presiden...
Israel Amter
Released
Israel Amter was a veteran New York Communist leader — long the face of the Party's unemployed and street-orga...
Maher Arar
Released
Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian telecommunications engineer and survivor of the United States’ extraordin...

Institutions in New York

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in New York that appear in the census’s case files.

Ellis Island Immigration StationNew York, New York
215 cases
Fort LafayetteNew York, New York
202 cases
Manhattan House of Detention (the Tombs)New York, New York
21 cases
Attica Correctional FacilityAttica, New York
20 cases
Sing Sing Correctional FacilityOssining, New York
15 cases
Ellis IslandNew York, New York
15 cases
Metropolitan Correctional CenterNew York, New York
10 cases
MDC BrooklynBrooklyn, New York
9 cases