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Texas

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 Texas.

260Documented
28In custody
161Released
4Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Texas

Where Texas’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 49 2020s 37 1970s 36 1980s 28 1960s 25 2000s 20

Documented cases

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

Jay Anthony Villarreal
In Custody
Jay Anthony Villarreal was arrested on July 2, 2025 after driving from Texas toward Washington, D.C. with thre...
Jason Renard Walker
In Custody
Jason Renard Walker is an incarcerated journalist and author who has exposed violence and alleged official mis...
Emilio Gutiérrez Soto
Released
Emilio Gutiérrez Soto is a Mexican journalist who sought refuge in the United States after threats linked to h...
Sergio Salazar
Released
Sergio Salazar, known as Mapache, participated in San Antonio's Occupy ICE encampment. Federal agents detained...
James Aaron
Released
James Aaron was a member of the Black Panther Party in Houston, Texas. In July 1970 he was accused of assault...
Mufid Abdulqader
Released
Mufid Abdulqader was a Palestinian born United States citizen who worked as a senior project manager in the p...
Howard Gayle Adams
In Exile
Howard Gayle Adams was a U.S. Army sergeant from Corsicana, Texas, and one of 21 American Korean War prisoners...
Victor Agosto
Released
Victor Agosto was an Army communications specialist and Iraq veteran who publicly refused deployment to Afghan...
Raunaq Alam
Raunaq Alam was jailed after a pro-Palestinian misdemeanor conviction; the jury rejected a hate-crime enhancem...
Matthew Almonte
Released
Matthew Almonte participated in the December 2012 Keystone XL pipeline protest near Winona, Texas. The protest...
Eugenio Alzalde
Eugenio Alzalde is individually pictured among the imprisoned Mexican revolutionaries in Charles Cline's Octob...
Mehrdad Moein Ansari
Released
Mehrdad Moein Ansari has been publicly described as a defendant convicted in a U.S. export-control case involv...
Rakem Balogun
Released
FBI-targeted over Facebook posts; felon-in-possession; ~6 months pretrial detention then indictment DISMISSED....
Charles W. Baltimore
Released
Charles W. Baltimore was a corporal of the 24th Infantry Regiment. Military policeman whose beating and arrest...
Fred Bell
Released
Fred Bell was a Texas community organizer (associated with the Dallas chapter of SNCC) whom The Black Panther...
Rudolph Bell
Rudolph Bell, also called Rudy Bell, was a Black Vietnam combat veteran among the Fort Hood 43 court-martialed...
Vernon Benton
Released
Vernon Benton was a member of the Houston chapter of the Black Panther Party who, with fellow members James Aa...
Homer Brooks
Released
Homer Brooks, born Homer Lester Bartchy, was the Communist Party's Texas secretary and its candidate for gover...
Isabel Indigo Brooks
Released
Isabel Indigo Brooks participated in the December 2012 Keystone XL pipeline protest near Winona, Texas. The pr...
Barrett Brown
Released
Barrett Brown is a journalist who in 2010 founded Project PM, an open source website that analyzed government...
G. T. Bryant
Released
G. T. Bryant was a twenty-year member of the Socialist Party at the time of his arrest and a state organizer f...
Tom Cahill
Released
Tom Cahill was a Vietnam-era peace activist and later a leader of the movement against sexual abuse in detenti...
Mario Cantu
Released
Mario Cantú was a San Antonio restaurateur and Chicano-movement activist who became, by his account, the first...
Abraham Cisneros
Released
Abraham Cisneros was one of the Mexican revolutionaries convicted in the 1913 Rangel-Cline case in Texas, capt...

Institutions in Texas

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

Fort Sam Houston Disciplinary BarracksSan Antonio, Texas
14 cases
Tarrant County JailFort Worth, Texas
9 cases
Federal Correctional Institution, TexarkanaTexarkana, Texas
5 cases
Federal Correctional Institution, Seagoville
5 cases
Texas State Penitentiary, HuntsvilleHuntsville, Texas
5 cases
Fort Sam HoustonSan Antonio, Texas
3 cases
Prairieland ICE Detention CenterAlvarado, Texas
2 cases
Harris County District CourtHouston, Texas
2 cases