Milo Yiannopoulos faces ICE removal order

Milo Yiannopoulos, the British right-wing commentator who has publicly urged aggressive U.S. deportation efforts, is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in Louisiana and faces a final order of removal, according to U.S. officials and agency records cited by CBS News.

Yiannopoulos, 41, was apprehended in the New Orleans area and is being held in a Louisiana ICE holding facility, CBS reported, citing U.S. officials. The BBC reported that Yiannopoulos’ name and British origins appear in a nationwide search of ICE’s detainee registry, indicating he appears to be held in Louisiana.

The circumstances of his detention remain unclear. CBS said it had contacted the Department of Homeland Security and ICE for additional details and the basis for his apprehension. The BBC said neither ICE nor Yiannopoulos had responded to requests for comment.

Reports cited by CBS indicated Yiannopoulos was in New Orleans ahead of a Friday night concert where the artist formerly known as Kanye West, now known as Ye, was scheduled to perform. TMZ first reported Yiannopoulos’ status, CBS said. Yiannopoulos has worked for Ye’s political and corporate ambitions, and the BBC described him as a former employee of the rapper.

Yiannopoulos, who grew up in Kent in southern England and currently resides in the United States, is a former editor of the right-wing U.S. website Breitbart. He has described himself as the “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” while critics have called him a purveyor of hate speech.

He was an early supporter of Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign and headlined a “Gays for Trump” event during the Republican National Convention that year. He has also backed tighter U.S. immigration restrictions and supported ICE enforcement.

“California needs ICE checkpoints at supermarket entrances, gas stations, strip malls, intersections and government buildings, with on the spot deportation for anyone who can’t prove they are in the US legally,” he posted on social media in June 2025, according to CBS.

“Total legal immunity for ICE agents when they’re on duty,” he wrote in September 2025, CBS reported. The BBC also cited the post, saying he wrote it on X last year.

In another June 2025 post cited by CBS, Yiannopoulos wrote: “There is one concrete thing we must insist on this administration delivering. It matters a lot more than debts measured in imaginary money. We have got to deport millions and millions of people. Without that, nothing else matters.”

Yiannopoulos has been widely criticized for comments about transgender people, Muslims, Black Lives Matter, feminists and gay people, according to the BBC. Though he previously identified as gay, the BBC reported that he now calls himself an “ex-gay.” He has written columns titled “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” and “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”

In 2017, Yiannopoulos was disinvited from speaking at CPAC, a U.S. conservative conference also attended by Trump, after footage emerged of him appearing to condone paedophilia, the BBC reported. He denied the allegations, said he had been speaking about his own experiences as a child, apologized and later resigned from Breitbart.

Yiannopoulos is regularly associated with the alt-right, described by the BBC as a disparate nationalistic movement that opposes so-called political correctness and feminism and includes neo-Nazis and white supremacists. He has said he does not consider himself part of the alt-right, though he has called it “energising and exciting.”