British right-wing political commentator, Milo Yiannopoulos, has been detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is awaiting deportation from the United States.
The 41-year-old former Breitbart News editor and one-time political aide to rapper Kanye West was arrested on August 27 after arriving at an airport in New Orleans.
According to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Yiannopoulos was issued a final removal order by an immigration judge on July 22 after he failed to attend his immigration hearing.
DHS said he would remain in custody pending his deportation. Records from the ICE inmate registry indicate that he is being held in Louisiana.
The department said Yiannopoulos entered the US in May 2019 and “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws”.
DHS also described him as “an illegal alien from the United Kingdom” and urged migrants living illegally in the country to leave voluntarily.
“Being in detention is a choice,” the DHS statement said, while calling on migrants who are in the US illegally to “self-deport now”.
Yiannopoulos, who grew up in Kent, southern England, became prominent in conservative political circles through his provocative commentary and association with the alt-right movement, although he has denied being part of the group.
He was an early supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and headlined a Republican National Convention event known as Gays for Trump.
However, his relationship with Trump has since changed.
In March this year, Yiannopoulos criticised the president on X, writing that Trump “has lost his way, bought off by foreign interests”.
His career has also been marked by controversies over his remarks concerning transgender people, Muslims, feminists, Black Lives Matter and gay people. Although he previously identified as gay, he now describes himself as an “ex-gay”.
In 2020, Yiannopoulos assisted Kanye West during the rapper’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.
He also worked for former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
His arrest was welcomed by far-right commentator and Trump ally Laura Loomer, who has previously feuded with Yiannopoulos.
Loomer claimed on X that Yiannopoulos had already been deported, saying his flight to the UK had departed.
“This subversive foreign agent is already out of the United States and DHS tells me he’s NEVER allowed to come back to the United States ever again,” she posted.
Yiannopoulos has previously supported tough immigration enforcement. Last year, he wrote on X: “Total legal immunity for ICE agents when they’re on duty.”
He also posted in 2025: “We have got to deport millions and millions of people. Without that, nothing else matters.”
In another social media post, he advocated “on the spot deportation for anyone who can’t prove they are in the US legally”.
His public profile suffered a major setback in 2017 when he was disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference after comments he made about paedophilia emerged. He later apologised and resigned from Breitbart.
Yiannopoulos denied the allegations, saying he had been discussing his own experiences as a child.
The BBC said it had contacted the British embassy in Washington for comment, while Yiannopoulos had not responded to its request.
