Milo Yiannopoulos deported to UK after ICE arrest at New Orleans airport
Milo Yiannopoulos speaks during an event hosted by senator David Leyonhjelm at Parliament House on December 5, 2017 in Canberra, Australia. Yiannopoulos is touring Australia with his Troll Academy show. (Photo by Michael Masters/Getty Images)
British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was deported to the United Kingdom after being arrested by U.S. immigration authorities, officials said Saturday.
What they're saying:
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Yiannopoulos was returned to his home country on Friday after being accused of overstaying after entering the U.S. legally in May 2019. A immigration judge had issued a final order of removal on July 22 after he failed to show up for an immigration hearing, a Homeland Security spokesperson said.
Yiannopoulos was arrested Thursday at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Louisiana and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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"He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws," a Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement.
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The other side:
Yiannopoulos and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment. He has not posted on his X social media account since Thursday.
Big picture view:
Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions criticizing feminism, Islam and immigrants. He has been especially supportive of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
"Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts," Yiannopoulos wrote on X last year.
The British national has most recently worked for the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who performed in New Orleans on Friday evening.
Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing pedophilia resurfaced online. He later apologized for the remarks and said he himself was a victim of sexual assault as a minor.
Yiannopoulos’ arrest on Thursday comes amid a nationwide uptick in detentions as part of Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Controversy around Yiannopoulos ballooned in 2017 when he carried out what he called his "Troll Academy Tour" across college campuses nationwide. Fights broke out when some students protested Yiannopoulos’ appearances and accused him of hate speech, while others celebrated him as a champion of free speech. Around that time, Buzzfeed reported on Yiannopoulos’ cozy relationships with self-proclaimed white nationalists.
In recent years, Yiannopoulos continued to work in the orbit of conservative activism. In 2022, he was an intern for former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, according to the Washington Post. He subsequently ran the short-lived 2024 presidential campaign for Ye.
Most recently, Yiannopoulos has worked as a spokesperson for Ye, who has been beset by controversy of his own following antisemitic comments that the rapper has since apologized for.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information in this story came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which confirmed Yiannopoulos’ arrest and deportation, as well as public records, his social media posts and previous reporting from outlets including The Washington Post and BuzzFeed. This story was reported from Los Angeles.