Milo Yiannopoulos, the British far-right commentator who spent years demanding faster mass deportations, has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for overstaying his visa and is being held while the government moves to remove him from the country.
The Department of Homeland Security announced the arrest on Friday, August 28, in a post on X, along with a mugshot of the 41-year-old staring blankly into the camera in a black t-shirt. Agents took him into custody Thursday, August 27, at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana.
DHS said Yiannopoulos “legally entered the country on May 14, 2019, through New York City, New York. He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.” An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on July 22 after he failed to show up for his immigration hearing. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal, the department said.
The ICE detainee database lists him as in custody but does not say where he is being held.
He Wanted the Deportations. Now He’s in One.
Yiannopoulos didn’t just support the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He kept telling it to move faster.
On January 25, 2025, five days after Trump’s second inauguration, he wrote on X: “If ICE has 90,000 employees, and all we are asking for is 10,000 deportations a day, that’s 9 agents per illegal. More than enough to cover investigation, apprehension and removal. What are they all waiting for?”
In September 2025 he called for total legal immunity for ICE agents while on duty. In a June 2025 post he said California needed ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections and government buildings, with on-the-spot deportation for anyone who couldn’t prove they were in the country legally.
DHS made a point of that history. In the same post announcing the arrest, the department pitched its self-deportation program. “Being in detention is a choice,” it wrote, pushing people toward the CBP Home App, which offers $2,600 and a free flight to leave voluntarily. Anyone who refuses, DHS warned, “will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.” DHS even linked to the TMZ story that broke the news.
Laura Loomer Says She Turned Him In
Within minutes of TMZ breaking the story, and hours before DHS confirmed it, far-right activist Laura Loomer claimed she was the one who tipped off the government.
“I was the first person to report on the fact that Milo was in the US illegally, where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for Marjorie Traitor Greene,” Loomer wrote on X. “When Milo called for me to be assassinated, I reported him to ICE and the FBI. I told you all that Milo was an illegal alien.”
The two have feuded publicly for a long time. Yiannopoulos had earlier published what he said were details of Loomer’s mental health history. She posted an undated video of the pair arguing and has spent months calling for his deportation.
Loomer also went after Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman Yiannopoulos once interned for. She called for the Justice Department to investigate Greene “for hiring and harboring” him. Greene has not publicly commented. She also said Candace Owens had recently invited Yiannopoulos into her home.
She said Yiannopoulos would be deported to the United Kingdom “where he can live among the Muslims he has recently chosen to embrace,” adding, “Today is a great day for America.” DHS has not said when he would be flown out.
From Breitbart Star to Twitter Ban
Yiannopoulos built his name at Breitbart, the conservative site Trump once counted among his favorites. During the 2016 campaign he became one of the loudest and most divisive voices in far-right media, working as the site’s tech editor under Steve Bannon.
His career collapsed in 2017 after video surfaced of him appearing to condone sexual relationships between adults and minors during a livestream. He resigned from Breitbart, lost a Simon & Schuster book deal, and had his speaking invitation to the Conservative Political Action Conference pulled. He later said, “I said some things on those Internet live streams that were simply wrong.”
He’d already been permanently banned from Twitter in 2016 for inciting a harassment campaign against actress Leslie Jones, the “Ghostbusters” star. Elon Musk reinstated his account after buying the platform in 2022.
Since then he has reinvented himself over and over to force his way back into MAGA circles. He renounced being gay and called himself “ex-gay,” leaned harder into anti-immigrant rhetoric, and attached himself to Ye. In 2022 he told NBC News he was “the architect” of the plan that brought white nationalist Nick Fuentes to a Mar-a-Lago dinner with Trump and Ye.
The Kanye West Connection
Yiannopoulos spent nearly two years as chief of staff to Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, before the two parted ways in 2024. He served as director of political operations for the YE24 campaign and worked on the rapper’s 2024 presidential bid.
He was likely in Louisiana because of Ye. The rapper is scheduled to perform Friday night at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, though it isn’t confirmed the concert is why Yiannopoulos was at the airport when agents grabbed him.
Their partnership got ugly. Yiannopoulos accused Ye’s dentist of supplying the rapper with nitrous oxide for recreational use, an allegation the dentist denied. He also resigned from Ye’s Yeezy clothing brand in May 2024 after the singer announced plans for an adult entertainment studio under the Yeezy name.
In May 2026, around the time Ye issued a public apology for his antisemitic statements, Yiannopoulos posted antisemitic messages of his own. In posts reviewed by TheWrap, he asked, “Why do Ashkenazi Jews find the letters ‘DNA’ so frightening?” and declared, “It’s Catholics and Muslims versus Protestants and Jews.”
A Career Built on Outrage
Yiannopoulos first gathered a right-wing following off the 2014 Gamergate online harassment campaign, then rode it into media and politics. In 2016 he was filmed singing “America the Beautiful” at a Dallas, Texas, bar alongside a group of neo-Nazis and white supremacists that included Richard Spencer, some of whom returned the moment with a Nazi salute.
He spent those years staging confrontational appearances on college campuses, aiming his commentary at Muslims, immigrants, feminists and other groups. He later interned for Marjorie Taylor Greene before moving into Ye’s orbit.
In 2023 he launched Tarantula, a talent management and strategic consulting firm that took on clients others avoided. His first two were rapper Azealia Banks and musician Ariel Pink. Tarantula dropped Banks in a letter saying the firm was not suited to managing her career, and she tore into him publicly afterwards. With Yiannopoulos now in custody, what happens to Tarantula is unclear. He had been living primarily in Los Angeles.
Still in Custody
For now, Yiannopoulos remains in ICE custody in Louisiana, awaiting removal after skipping the hearing that could have let him argue his case. The White House referred questions about the arrest to DHS.
The man who once wanted ICE checkpoints on every corner and immediate deportation for anyone who couldn’t prove their status is now on the other side of that exact machine. He entered the country legally in 2019 on a visa. According to the government, he stayed too long, ignored the court date that was supposed to sort it out, and got picked up walking through an airport terminal in a city he’d flown into for a concert.
