Milo Yiannopoulos says US deportation left him terrified

Milo Yiannopoulos, the British far-right commentator who once urged the United States to deport “millions and millions and millions of people,” said his own arrest and deportation by US immigration authorities left him “really, really terrified” and ashamed of his past support for President Donald Trump.

Yiannopoulos, 41, spoke publicly Tuesday for the first time since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested him last Thursday at the airport in New Orleans, Louisiana, and deported him to the United Kingdom. In an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored, he described the experience as “humiliating and disorientating,” “physically degrading” and “frightening.”

“I didn’t really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America,” Yiannopoulos said. He said his hands and feet were chained while he was in custody and criticized immigration authorities for treating detainees like violent criminals. “It’s like everybody that’s arrested is an MS-13 gang member, and it hurts a lot more than it looks like on television.”

The Department of Homeland Security said last week that Yiannopoulos had “legally entered the country” in May 2019 but “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.” The department said an immigration judge issued a final order of removal on July 22 after Yiannopoulos failed to appear for an immigration hearing.

White House border czar Tom Homan made the same argument in a Sunday interview with CNN. “He was ordered to appear in immigration court. He didn’t show up. The judge ordered him deported,” Homan said. “He had his due process order removed by a federal judge, and I removed him. It’s that simple.”

Yiannopoulos disputed that account in the interview with Morgan, saying Homan was lying and denying that he had overstayed a visa. He said he married an American in 2017 and filed for an adjustment of status that allowed him to move from a visa to a green card. He claimed the government later cancelled his green card and sent notices to an old address, adding that officials “knew that I had no idea what was happening.”

“The government knew I wasn’t there. The government knew I wasn’t getting these things. It knew that I had no idea what was happening, and they did this anyway,” he said. He called the deportation “unjust” and “unlawful” and said he would fight it in court.

Al Jazeera reported that it contacted ICE and DHS for comment but did not immediately receive a response. The Guardian said it contacted homeland security and the White House for comment on Yiannopoulos’s remarks.

Yiannopoulos was an early supporter of Trump before his first presidential term and later became known as a far-right provocateur. He is a former Breitbart News editor and worked with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, as Ye explored a 2024 presidential run.

His interview marked a sharp shift from his previous public comments on immigration. Last year, he wrote online that the Trump administration had to deport “millions and millions and millions of people,” saying, “Without that, nothing else matters.” In another 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 unable to prove legal status. Al Jazeera reported that in December 2024 he called for “zero immigration for the next 20 years.”

On Tuesday, Yiannopoulos said he was “ashamed” of supporting Trump. “If I had any clue that anything remotely like this was even possible, I would never have gotten involved in supporting Trump in the first place,” he said.

Yiannopoulos also said the detention changed how he viewed people who describe trauma from encounters with law enforcement and immigration authorities. “I think maybe in the past I’ve been a little bit blasé when people talked about their trauma,” he said. “But I get it now … I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”