Milo Yiannopoulos Deported to UK

DHS says far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was deported Friday after an ICE arrest in New.

Far-right British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, 41, was arrested Thursday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Louisiana and deported to the United Kingdom on Friday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Saturday. DHS said he legally entered the country through New York in May 2019 but then 'chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation's laws.' An immigration judge had issued a final order of removal on July 22 after Yiannopoulos failed to show up for his immigration hearing, according to a DHS spokesperson.

The deportation is striking because Yiannopoulos built much of his recent profile cheering the very enforcement action that removed him. He was an especially vocal supporter of President Donald Trump's mass deportation campaign, writing 'Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts' on X last year, and calling in 2025 for on-the-spot deportation for anyone who could not prove legal US residency, as The Guardian reports. DHS used the case to advertise its self-deportation push, offering '$3,000 and a free flight' to people in the country illegally and warning that anyone who refuses will be 'arrested and deported without a chance to return.'

DHS released a booking photo of Yiannopoulos and laid out the immigration timeline: lawful entry in May 2019, a missed hearing, and a final removal order signed July 22. The department told the BBC he was 'an illegal alien from the United Kingdom' who had been sent 'back to his home country.' According to PBS, DHS did not respond to follow-up questions seeking details about his 2019 legal entry, including whether he was granted a visa. Yiannopoulos has not publicly commented, and his X account has been silent since Thursday.

The arrest also played out against a long-running feud with fellow far-right commentator Laura Loomer, a Trump ally who claimed on X that she first reported Yiannopoulos's immigration status to authorities and celebrated his removal. 'I was the first person to report on the fact that Milo was in the US illegally,' Loomer wrote, per PBS. According to Al Jazeera, Loomer called the deportation 'a great day for America' — but Yiannopoulos and DHS had once been aligned, with The Guardian noting he had advocated immigration checkpoints at supermarkets and gas stations with immediate deportations.

Yiannopoulos rose to prominence in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for Breitbart News, resigning in 2017 after a video resurfaced in which he appeared to endorse pedophilia. He later apologized, saying he was himself a victim of sexual assault as a minor. His 2017 'Troll Academy Tour' of college campuses sparked protests and free-speech battles. More recently, he interned for former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2022, ran Ye's short-lived 2024 presidential campaign, and most recently worked as a spokesperson for the rapper, who performed in New Orleans on Friday evening.

Yiannopoulos was believed to have been in New Orleans this week as part of his work with Ye, whose Caesars Superdome performance went on the same night as the deportation. He now joins a growing roster of high-profile detentions in what outlets describe as a nationwide uptick in enforcement under Trump's immigration crackdown. Loomer, per the BBC, claims he will never be allowed back into the United States.