Local
Bisexual Black man alleges abuse at Va. ICE detention center
Paul White has been at Caroline Detention Center since August 2020
A bisexual Black man in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody says he continues to suffer abuse at the Virginia detention center in which he is being detained.
Paul White has been in ICE custody at the Caroline Detention Center in Caroline County, which is roughly 70 miles south of D.C., since August 2020.
Amanda Díaz of Freedom for Immigrants, a group that seeks to end the detention of immigrants and asylum seekers, in a July 15 complaint she sent to Caroline Detention Facility Supt. Paul Perry, ICE Washington Field Office Director Matthew Munroe, Department of Homeland Security Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Katherine Culliton-González and DHS Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari notes three specific “use of force” incidents against White.
The complaint notes three Caroline Detention Facility staffers on Nov. 5, 2020, brought White to a “rover security office” in the back of the dining hall after he complained about the quality of the food he received for dinner. White alleges one of the staffers then “grabbed” him “by his jumper collar and slammed him into the door, threatening that if he moved or said anything, he was going to kill him.”
White during a Nov. 11 telephone interview from the Caroline Detention Facility told the Washington Blade that the staffer assaulted him in an area without video surveillance. White said he filed a complaint with ICE, but “nothing happened.”
The complaint notes the same Caroline Detention Facility staffer who assaulted White last November “approached” him “in his dorm” on Feb. 10 and asked to speak to him.” White, according to the complaint, “refused” and the staffer “then asked to speak to him in the library, where [White] was under the impression that there were no cameras.”
The complaint says White “was afraid to go with” the staffer “to a place with no cameras and refused again.” The staffer then “put everyone in the dorm on lockdown and put [White] in segregation and charged him with “approaching” the staffer “in a threatening manner.” White, according to the complaint, returned to his dorm after the charge was dismissed.
The complaint states a Caroline Detention Facility staffer on May 10 “handcuffed my client and dragged him across the floor on his knees” after White challenged new rules about where detainees could sit in the dining hall.
“I was cuffed because I refused to walk because I was wrongfully targeted and I was like I’m not going to walk,” White told the Blade. “He started dragging me on the ground.”
White said the staffer then threatened to mace him.
“He pulled his mace out, had it over my face and threatened me if I don’t get up and walk, he was going to mace me,” said White. “I turned to him and I was like, ‘I’m in cuffs and you’re going to mace me.'”
White said the next morning he took 10 600 mg Ibuprofen pills in an attempt to die by suicide. White told the Blade that Caroline Detention Facility staffers placed him into an isolation cell, and the pills were among the personal belongings he said they brought to him.
“I was just tired of the abuse that I’ve been suffering by the hands of this facility and ICE,” said White. “I felt like I was worthless and I just wanted to end the pain.”
White described to the Blade another incident in which he said an ICE officer took his blankets and bedsheets away from him after he questioned why they demanded he get out of bed.
“They say we can’t be under our covers from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.,” said White. “I told him that’s punishment and this is not prison, and he still went ahead and did it.”
White said he didn’t get his “stuff back until” 7 p.m. White told the Blade he reported the incident to both ICE and Caroline Detention Facility staffers, but “they did nothing about it.”
Freedom for Immigrants, the National Lawyers Guild’s National Immigrant Project and the Free Them All VA Coalition on Aug. 31 filed a separate complaint with Culliton-González on behalf of White and 18 other people who are currently in ICE custody at the Caroline Detention Facility or were previously held there.
“Since April 2021, we have received reports from these 19 individuals being held at Caroline Detention Facility who have called the Freedom for Immigrants (FFI) National Immigration Detention Hotline and individual advocates to report that they have suffered from physical and verbal abuse, contaminated food, denials of right to practice religion, medical neglect, denial of disability accommodations, unsanitary conditions, phone access restrictions, solitary confinement and/or COVID-19 negligence,” reads the complaint. “These reports demonstrate a pattern and practice of ongoing and blatant violations of the 2011 ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards, with which Caroline Detention Facility is required to comply per their contract with ICE.”
White told the Blade that he tested positive for COVID-19 last November. He said he is now vaccinated, but stressed facility staffers don’t wear face masks and don’t properly clean the detention center.
White also said he had a “mental breakdown” a few weeks ago and a Caroline Detention Facility staff person told him “you need to speak with me first” when he asked to speak with a mental health professional and an ICE officer.
“I said, ‘No, you’re not mental health and you’re not ICE,” said White, recalling what he said he told the staff person. “He told me that I’m in his jurisdiction. I said jurisdiction. I said man, listen, you’re not going to put no cuffs on me like the last time you did and dragged me.”
White told the Blade that he was eventually allowed to see a mental health professional in the infirmary, but the Caroline Detention Facility staffer nevertheless wrote him up and placed him in segregation. White said he was found not guilty, but the staffer who filed the complaint against him later threatened him.
“The captain looked at me and said I was lucky because if it were him he would have hurt me,” said White.
White also told the Blade that his overall physical health has deteriorated since he arrived at Caroline Detention Facility.
White fears deportation to ‘homophobic’ homeland
White is from a country that he asked the Blade not to identify, but he said consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized there.
He arrived in the U.S. in 2001 after his mother sponsored him for a green card.
White lived in New York for several years. He worked as a cable company technician before he began an entertainment company and opened a restaurant. White, who has a daughter, moved to Henrico County, Va., in 2012.
He said he was arrested in Chesterfield County, Va., but did not tell the Blade why.
“Basically, as a Black man I was targeted and the justice system basically sent me to prison,” said White.
White has asked the U.S. to grant him protection under the U.N. Convention against Torture due to the persecution he said he would suffer in his home country because of his sexual orientation.
An immigration judge in May ruled against White.
White appealed the ruling to the Virginia-based Board of Immigration Appeals, but it dismissed his case last week.
“Mr. White is currently exploring options to continue pursuing his case,” White’s former attorney, Leanne Gale, told the Blade in an email.
White told the Blade he is “pretty much scared to my gut” about being deported to his home country.
“I’m going back to a country that I left 20 years ago and I have no financial support,” he said. “Basically, I have to go back to the same place where they’re waiting for me, that I’m going to be harmed.”
White further described his country as “homophobic.”
“The laws stated that if you’re gay or lesbian, you’re supposed to be locked up and persecuted,” he said. “I see guys got killed, burned and beaten with car tires. I’ve heard of people who got shot and the police’s not going to do nothing about it … the communities govern themselves. When you’re been exposed as being gay, lesbian or bisexual, even your mom, your dad, your cousins, your uncles, they’re all against you and you potentially might not be killed by a stranger. You might be killed by your own parents.”
ICE ‘has zero tolerance for all forms of abuse’
ICE spokesperson James Covington in a statement he sent to the Blade on Monday did not specifically comment on White’s allegations. Covington, however, stressed ICE “has zero tolerance for all forms of abuse, assault, or neglect against individuals in the agency’s custody. Furthermore, ICE practices strict adherence to all federally mandated COVID-19 protocols at all of our facilities.”
“ICE focuses on prevention and intervention with specific requirements for detainee supervision, classification, and background checks for staff and contractors,” said Covington. “Moreover, ICE works extensively to ensure that all detainees are aware of how to make an allegation of abuse or assault, that allegations are treated seriously, that detainees are protected and provided all required services, and that thorough investigations are completed. The agency has implemented policies and procedures to establish an environment where staff and detainees are encouraged and feel comfortable reporting allegations and do not face any retaliation for bringing to light concerning behavior. ICE and facility staff receive specialized training to appropriately respond to all allegations in a professional and timely manner.”
White in a follow-up statement to the Blade said he has “not personally seen any investigation” done in response to his complaints.
“I tried to press charges and they wouldn’t help me,” he said. “They do not take any of our complaints seriously.”
LGBTQ immigrant groups rally behind White
The Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, the Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project and La ColectiVA have launched a campaign that urges ICE to release White. The groups have also been adding money to White’s commissary account at the Caroline Detention Facility.
Uchechukwu Onwa, co-director of the Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, spent three months in ICE custody in Atlanta in 2017 after he arrived in the U.S. from Nigeria. Onwa on Tuesday told the Blade during a telephone interview that he is “not surprised” by White’s allegations.
“This is something that we see happen a lot with immigrant communities, but also it’s happened more within the LGBTQ immigrant community and then being Black as well, so this is all linked to anti-Blackness, xenophobia and racist attack,” said Onwa.
June Kuoch, a Queer Detainee Empowerment Project organizer, agreed.
“Mr. White’s case is not an anomaly or an exception within the system, but rather the norm,” they said.
“As a Black, bisexual man, Mr. White has been the target of escalated abuse and violence while in detention,” Díaz told the Blade in a statement.
She added White “continues to resist, organize and advocate for the release of himself and others despite ICE continuing to target him.”
“His leadership and willingness to speak out in the face of ongoing abuse is a salient reminder that no matter where someone came from or who we are, everybody’s life is of value and worthy of justice, safety, and dignity,” said Díaz.
White told the Blade “the world needs to know what’s been going on behind these walls when we’ve been detained.”
“Through my story they can understand and know that ICE itself they have been violating the (U.N.) Convention against Torture, and this is what they’ve been doing,” he said. “They’ve been torturing us mentally, and sometimes physically.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride board member resigns, alleges failure to address ‘sexual misconduct’
In startling letter, Taylor Chandler says board’s inaction protected ‘sexual predator’
Taylor Lianne Chandler, a member of the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors since 2019 who most recently served as the board’s secretary, submitted a letter of resignation on Feb. 24 that alleges the board has failed to address instances of “sexual misconduct” within the Capital Pride organization.
The Washington Blade received a copy of Chandler’s resignation letter one day after she submitted it from an anonymous source. Chandler, who identifies as transgender and intersex, said in an interview that she did not send the letter to the Blade, but she suspected someone associated with Capital Pride, which organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, “wants it out in the open.”
“It is with a heavy heart, but with absolute clarity, that I submit my resignation from the Capital Pride Alliance Board of Directors effective immediately,” Chandler states in her letter. “I have devoted nearly ten years of my life to this organization,” she wrote, pointing to her initial involvement as a volunteer and later as a producer of events as chair of the organization’s Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Intersex Committee.
“Capital Pride once meant something profound to me – a space of safety, visibility, and community for people who have often been denied all three,” her letter continues. “That is no longer the organization I am part of today.”
“I, along with other board members, brought forward credible concerns regarding sexual misconduct – a pattern of behavior spanning years – to the attention of this board,” Chandler states in the letter. “What followed was not accountability. What followed was retaliation. Rather than addressing the substance of what was reported, officers and fellow board members chose to chastise those of us who came forward.”
The letter adds, “This board has made its priorities clear through its actions: protecting a sexual predator matters more than protecting the people who had the courage to come forward. … I have been targeted, bullied, and made to feel like an outsider for doing what any person of integrity would do – telling the truth.”
In response to a request from the Blade for comment, Anna Jinkerson, who serves as chair of the Capital Pride board, sent the Blade a statement praising Taylor Chandler’s efforts as a Capital Pride volunteer and board member but did not specifically address the issue of alleged sexual misconduct.
“We’re also aware that her resignation letter has been shared with the media and has listed concerns,” Jinkerson said in her statement. “When concerns are brought to CPA, we act quickly and appropriately to address them,” she said.
“As we continue to grow our organization, we’re proactively strengthening the policies and procedures that shape our systems, our infrastructure, and the support we provide to our team and partners,” Jinkerson said in her statement. “We’re doing this because the community’s experience with CPA must always be safe, affirming, empowering, and inclusive,” she added.
In an interview with the Blade, Chandler said she was not the target of the alleged sexual harassment.
She said a Capital Pride investigation identified one individual implicated in a “pattern” of sexual harassment related behavior over a period of time. But she said she was bound by a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that applies to all board members and she cannot disclose the name of the person implicated in alleged sexual misconduct or those who came forward to complain about it.
“It was one individual, but there was a pattern and a history,” Chandler said, noting that was the extent of what she can disclose.
“And I’ll say this,” she added. “In my opinion, with gay culture sometimes the touchy feely-ness that goes on seems to be like just part of the culture, not necessarily the same as a sexual assault or whatever. But at the same time, if someone does not want those advances and they’re saying no and trying to push you away and trying to avoid you, then it makes it that way regardless of the culture.”
When asked about when the allegations of sexual harassment first surfaced, Chandler said, “In the past year is when the allegation came forward from one individual. But in the course of this all happening, other individuals came forward and talked about instances – several which showed a pattern.”
Chandler’s resignation comes about five months after Capital Pride Alliance announced in a statement released in October 2025 that its then board president, Ashley Smith, resigned from his position on Oct. 18 after Capital Pride became aware of a “claim” regarding Smith. The statement said the group retained an independent firm to investigate the matter, but it released no further details since that time. Smith has declined to comment on the matter.
When asked by the Blade if the Smith resignation could be linked in some way to allegations of sexual misconduct, Chandler said, “I can’t make a comment one way or the other on that.”
Chandler’s resignation and allegations come after Capital Pride Alliance has been credited with playing the lead role in organizing the World Pride celebration hosted by D.C. in which dozens of LGBTQ-related Pride events were held from May through June of 2025.
The letter of resignation also came just days before Capital Pride Alliance’s annual “Reveal” event scheduled for Feb. 26 at the Hamilton Hotel in which the theme for D.C.’s June 2026 LGBTQ Pride events was to be announced along with other Pride plans.
District of Columbia
Capital Stonewall Democrats elect new leaders
LGBTQ political group set to celebrate 50th anniversary
Longtime Democratic Party activists Stevie McCarty and Brad Howard won election last week as president and vice president for administration for the Capital Stonewall Democrats, D.C.’s largest local LGBTQ political organization.
In a Feb. 24 announcement, the group said McCarty and Howard, both of whom are elected DC Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners, ran in a special Capital Stonewall Democrats election to fill the two leadership positions that became vacant when the officers they replaced resigned.
Outgoing President Howard Garrett, who McCarty has replaced, told the Washington Blade he resigned after taking on a new position as chair of the city’s Ward 1 Democratic Committee. The Capital Stonewall Democrats announcement didn’t say who Howard replaced as vice president for administration.
The group’s website shows its other officers include Elizabeth Mitchell as Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs, and Monica Nemeth as Treasurer. The officer position of secretary is vacant, the website shows.
“As we look toward 2026, the stakes for D.C. and for LGBTQ+ communities have never been clearer,” the group’s statement announcing McCarty and Howard’s election says. “Our 50th anniversary celebration on March 20 and the launch of our D.C. LGBTQ+ Voter’s Guide mark the beginning of a major year for endorsements, organizing, and coalition building,” the statement says.
McCarty said among the organization’s major endeavors will be holding virtual endorsement forums where candidates running for D.C. mayor and the Council will appear and seek the group’s endorsement.
Founded in 1976 as the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the organization’s members voted in 2021 to change its name to Capital Stonewall Democrats. McCarty said the 50th anniversary celebration on March 20, in which D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the D.C. Council are expected to attend, will be held at the PEPCO Gallery meeting center at 702 8th St., N.W.
Virginia
Va. activists preparing campaign in support of repealing marriage amendment
Referendum about ‘dignity and equal protection under the law’
Virginia voters in November will vote on whether to repeal their state’s constitutional amendment that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger on Feb. 6 signed House Bill 612 into law. It facilitates a referendum for voters to approve the repeal of the 2006 Marshall-Newman Amendment. Although the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling extended marriage rights to same-sex couples across the country in 2014, codifying marriage equality in Virginia’s constitution would protect it in the state in case the decision is overturned.
Maryland voters in 2012 approved Question 6, which upheld the state’s marriage equality law, by a 52-48 percent margin. Same-sex marriage became legal in Maryland on Jan. 1, 2013.
LGBTQ advocacy groups and organizations that oppose marriage equality mounted political campaigns ahead of the referendum.
Equality Virginia has been involved in advancing LGBTQ rights in Virginia since 1989.
Equality Virginia is working under its 501c3 designation in conjunction with Equality Virginia Advocates, which operates under a 501c4 designation, to plan campaigns in support of repealing the Marshall-Newman Amendment.
The two main campaigns on which Equality Virginia will be focused are education and voter mobilization. Reed Williams, the group’s director of digital engagement and narrative, spoke with the Washington Blade about Equality Virginia’s plans ahead of the referendum.
Williams said an organization for a “statewide public education campaign” is currently underway. Williams told the Blade its goal will be “to ensure voters understand what this amendment does and why updating Virginia’s constitution matters for families across the commonwealth.”
The organization is also working on a “robust media and voter mobilization campaign to identify and turn out voters” to repeal Marshall-Newman Amendment. Equality Virginia plans to work with the community members to guarantee voters are getting clear and accurate information regarding the meaning of this vote and its effect on the Virginia LGBTQ community.
“We believe Virginia voters are ready to bring our constitution in line with both the law and the values of fairness and freedom that define our commonwealth,” said Equality Virginia Executive Director Narissa Rahaman. “This referendum is about ensuring loving, committed couples and their families are treated with dignity and equal protection under the law.”
The Human Rights Campaign has also worked closely with Equality Virginia.
“It’s time to get rid of outdated, unconstitutional language and ensure that same sex couples are protected in Virginia,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told the Blade in a statement.
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