US immigration officials arrested controversial British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday in New Orleans, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Immigration officials announced Friday that Yiannopoulos was arrested at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and charged with overstaying after entering the United States legally in May 2019 through New York City. An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on July 22 after Yiannopoulos failed to show up for his immigration hearing, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in an email.
“He has chosen to overstay his welcome in violation of the laws of our country,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement.
ICE’s online detainer locator does not say where Yiannopoulos is being held but directs family and legal representatives to the agency’s office in Alexandria, Louisiana, a deportation center for international flights.
Representatives for Yiannopoulos did not respond to a request for comment. It is unclear whether he has legal representation.
The British national recently worked with rapper Yee, formerly known as Kanye West, who is scheduled to perform in New Orleans on Friday night.
Yiannopoulos is a well-known advocate for conservative causes and has often taken provocative public stances critical of feminism, Islam, and immigrants. He has been particularly supportive of President Donald Trump’s campaign against immigration.
Get breaking national news
Get Canada breaking news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you never miss a trending story.
“Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No conditions, no reservations,” Yiannopoulos wrote on social media platform X last year.
Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as a controversial writer for the conservative website Breitbart News. He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing child sexual abuse surfaced online. He later apologized for the remarks and said that he himself had been a victim of sexual assault when he was a minor.
Yiannopoulos’ arrest on Friday comes amid a nationwide surge in arrests as part of Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
Far-right conservative activist Laura Loomer quickly took to social media to praise Yiannopoulos’ arrest after years of public feud between the two figures.
“I was the first person to report the fact that Milo was in the United States illegally where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for the traitorous Marjorie Greene,” Loomer wrote on X.
The controversy surrounding Yiannopoulos escalated in 2017 when he took what he called an “Academy Troll Tour” across college campuses across the country. Scuffles broke out when some students protested Yiannopoulos’ appearance and accused him of hate speech, while others celebrated him as a champion of free speech. Around that time, Buzzfeed reported on Yiannopoulos’ intimate relationships with self-proclaimed white nationalists.
In recent years, Yiannopoulos has continued to work in the orbit of conservative activism. In 2022, he was an intern for former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, according to The Washington Post. He subsequently ran the short-lived 2024 presidential campaign for Yi. Most recently, Yiannopolous served as a spokesperson for Ye, who has endured controversy over his anti-Semitic comments for which the rapper has since apologized.
& Edition 2026 The Canadian Press
