Milo Yiannopoulos, the British-born far-right political commentator and longtime U.S. media figure, is being held by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana, according to federal detention records.
ICE has not publicly identified the specific detention facility where Yiannopoulos is being held. The agency’s online detainee locator directs family members and legal representatives to contact the Deportation Office in Alexandria, Louisiana, a central processing center located roughly 320 miles from New Orleans.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an emailed statement that Yiannopoulos legally entered the United States through New York City in May 2019 but overstayed his authorized period of admission. The spokesperson said Yiannopoulos failed to appear for an immigration hearing and received a final order of removal from an immigration judge on July 22. DHS said he was taken into ICE custody on Thursday, August 27, and will remain detained pending his release or removal proceedings.
TMZ first reported Yiannopoulos’ detention. He has previously lived and worked in the United States on an O-1 visa, which is available to individuals with extraordinary ability in fields including the arts, sciences, education, business and journalism. Yiannopoulos has never been a U.S. citizen.
Yiannopoulos began his career in American politics at the right-wing website Breitbart, where he worked from 2014 through 2017. He resigned after making controversial comments about sexual relationships between adults and adolescent boys, which he later described as fully consensual. He has remained active in right-wing political circles and claimed in 2022 that he helped arrange a controversial dinner at Mar-a-Lago involving Kanye West, white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Donald Trump. The event was widely criticized and became a source of political controversy.
Yiannopoulos married his longtime partner in Hawaii in 2017. In 2021, he said he identified as straight and Roman Catholic and announced plans to open a gay conversion therapy facility in Florida. He also continued working with Fuentes and former U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Yiannopoulos has also worked as a Kanye West spokesperson. West is scheduled to perform at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Friday night as part of his 2026 tour. Yiannopoulos joined West’s proposed 2024 presidential campaign in late 2022 but left days after West expressed Nazi views and praised Adolf Hitler during an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars livestream. The pair reunited intermittently in the years that followed. In 2024, Yiannopoulos claimed in a series of posts on X that West had been poisoned with nitrous oxide.
Throughout his time as a MAGA-aligned political figure, Yiannopoulos has frequently engaged in public disputes with opponents and former allies. One of his most vocal critics has been Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who on Friday shared an X post about his ICE detention and appeared to claim partial credit for bringing attention to his immigration status.
“I was the first to report the fact that Milo was in the United States illegally, where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for traitor Marjorie Greene,” Loomer said. I wrote. “Milo will be deported to England, where he will live among Muslims who have recently chosen to embrace him. This is a great day for America.”
Last summer, Yiannopoulos posted hard-line anti-immigration views on X. “There’s one specific thing we have to advocate for this administration to accomplish,” he said. I wrote. “We have to deport millions and millions of people. Without that, nothing else matters.”
Updated Friday, Aug. 28, at 5 p.m.: This article was updated to include a statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Source: www.wired.com