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
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
District of Columbia
D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith to step down Dec. 31
Cites plans to spend more time with family after 28 years in law enforcement
In a surprise statement on Dec. 8, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith will step down from her job on Dec. 31 after a little over two years as the city’s police chief.
In August of 2023, after Bowser named Smith as Acting Chief shortly before the D.C. Council approved her nomination as permanent chief, she told the Washington Blade in an interview she was committed to providing “fair and equal treatment” for all of the city’s diverse communities, especially the LGBTQ community.
She pointed out that in her role as the department’s Chief Equity Officer before she was appointed chief, she worked in support of what she said was the significant number of LGBTQ police officers serving in the department and also worked closely with the department’s LGBTQ Liaison Unit.
“We also have LGBTQ members serving in the reserve and volunteer corps supporting many functions in the department, including support for the LGBTQ Liaison Unit,” she told the Blade. “We have a nationally recognized LGBTQ Liaison Unit.”
Bowser’s statement announcing Smith’s resignation praised Smith for playing a lead role in significantly lowering the city’s crime rate.
“Chief Smith dramatically drove down violent crime, drove down the homicide rate to its lowest levels in eight years, and helped us restore a sense of safety and accountability in our neighborhoods,” the mayor said in her statement. “We are grateful for her service to Washington, D.C.”
Bowser’s statement did not provide a reason for Smith’s decision to step down at this time. But in a Monday morning interview with D.C.’s Fox 5 TV, Smith said she was stepping down to spend more time with her family based in Arkansas.
“After 28 years in law enforcement I have been going nonstop,” she told Fox 5. “I have missed many amazing celebrations, birthdays, marriages, you name it, within our family,” she said. “Being able to come home for Thanksgiving two years after my mom passed really resonated with me,” she added in referring to her family visit in Arkansas for Thanksgiving last month.
Smith said she plans to remain a D.C.-area resident following her departure as police chief. Bowser said later in the day on Dec. 8 that she needs some time to decide who she will name as the next D.C. police chief and that she would begin her search within the MPD.
Smith served for 24 years in high-level positions with the U.S. Park Police, including as Park Police Chief in the D.C. area, before joining D.C. police as Chief Equity Officer in 2021. A short time later she was named an assistant chief for homeland security before Bowser nominated her as Police Chief in 2023 and installed her as acting chief before the D.C. Council confirmed her as chief.
She became D.C. police chief at a time when homicides and violent crime in general were at a record high in the years following the pandemic. Although Bowser and Smith have pointed to the significant drop in homicides through 2024 and 2025, Smith was hit with President Donald Trump’s decision in August of this year to order a temporary federal takeover of the D.C. Police Department and to send National Guard Troops to patrol D.C. streets on grounds, according to Trump, that the D.C. crime rate was “out of control.”
Both Bowser and Smith have come under criticism from some local activists and members of the D.C. Council for not speaking out more forcefully against the Trump intervention into D.C. law enforcement, especially over what critics have said appeared to be D.C. police cooperation with federal immigration agents sent in by the Trump administration.
During a mayoral End of Year Situational Update event called by Bowser on Dec. 8, shortly after announcing Smith’s resignation, both Bowser and Smith said they cooperated with federal law enforcement officials to a certain degree as part of the city’s longstanding practice of cooperating with federal law enforcement agencies since long before Trump became president.
“We are currently on pace to be at the lowest number of homicides in over eight years,” Smith told those attending the event held at the D.C. Department of Health’s offices. “To date, homicides are down 51 percent compared to 2023, and we are down 30 percent compared to the same time last year,” she said.
She also noted that homicide detectives have been closing murder cases by arranging for arrests at a significantly higher rate in the past two years.
In her 2023 interview with the Blade, Smith said she would continue what she called the department’s aggressive effort to address hate crimes at a time when the largest number of reported hate crimes in the city were targeting LGBTQ people.
“What I can say is in this department we certainly have strong policies and training to make sure members can recognize hate crimes,” Smith said. “And officers have to report whether there are any indications of a possible hate crime whenever they’re investigating or engaged in a case,” she added. “We have a multidisciplinary team that works together on reported hate crimes.”
District of Columbia
Third LGBTQ candidate running for Ward 1 D.C. Council seat
Community organizer Aparna Raj a ‘proud daughter of immigrants’
In what appears to be an unprecedented development in local D.C. elections, three known LGBTQ candidates are now running for the open Ward 1 D.C. Council seat in the city’s June 16, 2026, Democratic primary.
Longtime Ward 1 community organizer Aparna Raj, a bisexual woman who identifies herself on her campaign website as a “queer woman of color,” announced her candidacy for the Ward 1 Council seat on Aug. 12 of this year.
The Washington Blade didn’t learn of her status as an out-LGBTQ candidate until late last month when one of her supporters contacted the Blade after publication of the Blade’s story about the second of two gay male candidates running for the Ward 1 Council seat – Ward 1 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Miguel Trindade Deramo.
Trindade Deramo’s candidacy announcement on Nov. 18 followed the announcement in July by fellow gay Ward 1 ANC commissioner Brian Footer that Footer is running for the Ward 1 Council seat in the upcoming Democratic primary.
If any of the three Ward 1 LGBTQ candidates were to win the primary and win in the November general election, they would likely become the second LGBTQ member of the D.C. Council. Then gay D.C. Board of Education member Zachary Parker, a Democrat, won election to the Ward 5 Council seat in 2022. Parker, who is up for re-election in 2026, is considered by political observers to have a strong chance of winning the upcoming election.
“Aparna Raj is a community organizer, union member and proud daughter of immigrants,” her campaign website states. “She is running for D.C. Council in Ward 1 because she believes everyone – from Adams Morgan to Park View, from Spring Road to U Street – can and should have what they need to survive and thrive,” the statement on her website continues.
It adds, “Aparna is a renter, a queer woman of color, and a democratic socialist fighting for a better world … She lives in Columbia Heights with her husband, Stuart, and their little dog, Frank.”
In a Dec. 5 interview with the Blade, Raj said she identifies as a bisexual woman and has been a longtime supporter of D.C.’s “queer and trans communities” on a wide range of issues that she says she will continue to address if elected to the Council.
She said she currently works as a communications manager for a nonprofit organization that supports local elected officials across the country on issues related to economic justice.
As the daughter of parents who immigrated to the U.S. from India, Raj said she will continue her work as an advocate for D.C.’s immigrant communities, especially those who live in Ward 1.
“And I feel very strongly that we need someone who will organize and fight for the working class, who will fight for renters and workers and immigrants and families, to not just be able to get by but to be able to live a full life here,” she told the Blade. “Making sure that we’re providing enough for renters and for workers means that is an LGBTQ+ issue,” she said. “That is an issue that benefits the LGBTQ+ community.”
Among the things she will also address as a Council member, Raj said, will be to push for the city to do all it can to counter the policies of the administration of President Donald Trump.
“When the LGBTQ community is so under attack right now and when queer and trans folks are facing homelessness, are making less money on the job than their cis counterparts – when folks are scared about whether they will be able to continue healthcare or be able to hold on to their job through this period, having someone that takes on their landlord, that will stand on picket lines with workers and will certainly fight the Trump administration – all that is an LGBTQ justice issue,” she told the Blade.
Raj, Trindade Deramo, and Footer are among a total of six known candidates so far who are competing in the June 16 Democratic primary for the Ward 1 Council seat.
The other three, who are not LGBTQ, are Ward 1 ANC member Rashida Brown, longtime Ward 1 community activist Terry Lynch, and Jackie Reyes-Yanes, the former director of the Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs.
Similar to Raj, Trindade Deramo and Footer have been involved as community activists in a wide range of local LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ issues as described on their respective campaign websites.
And like all candidates on the ballot for the city’s 2026 primary, the three LGBTQ Ward 1 candidates will be competing for voters under the city’s newly implemented rank choice voting system. Under that system, voters will have the option of designating one of the LGBTQ candidates as their first, second, or third choice for the Council seat,
“I’m really excited about ranked choice voting,” Raj said. “And I think it’s great that there’s so many incredible candidates who are dropping into the Ward 1 race,” she said. “We’ll also be including a lot of voter education into our campaign materials as well since this will be the first year that D.C. is doing ranked choice voting.”
The three LGBTQ Ward 1 candidates are running at a time when local political observers are predicting the largest change in local D.C. elected officials, including the office of mayor and D.C. Council, in decades following the 2026 election. Longtime D.C. Council member Anita Bonds (D-At-Large), announced on Dec. 5 that she will not run for re-election in 2026.
Her announcement came shortly after Mayor Muriel Bowser announced she too is not running for a fourth term in office as mayor and about a month after incumbent Ward 1 Council member Brienne Nadeau (D) announced she is not running for re-election.
Bowser’s announcement prompted speculation that more Council members will run for mayor, some of whom will give up their Council seats if they either win or lose the mayoral race because their respective Council seats are also up for election in 2026.
Thus the 2026 D.C. election shakeup, in addition to bringing about a new mayor, could result in five or six new Council members on the 13-member Council.
Aparna Raj’s campaign website can be accessed here:
Brian Footer’s campaign website can be accessed here:
Miguel Trindade Deramo’s campaign website can be accessed here:
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