The Trump administration said on Friday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had arrested Milo Yiannopoulos, the prominent right-wing agitator and early supporter of President Trump, at the New Orleans airport.
Public ICE detention records confirmed that Mr. Yiannopoulos was in custody, but did not say where he was being held. The Homeland Security Department said that Mr. Yiannopoulos had overstayed his visa and was issued a final deportation order in July. That order means Mr. Yiannopoulos faces possible removal from the country.
The administration publicized the arrest, circulating an unflattering mug shot and warning other immigrants to “take control of their departure” by self-deporting. The arrest follows the administration’s broader effort to target foreign citizens at airports, a tactic that opened a vast pool of people for deportation. Immigration agents in plain clothes have in recent months whisked away targets at check-in counters and arrival gates with the help of information provided by airlines to the Transportation Security Administration.
Mr. Yiannopoulos is a British citizen who has lived in the United States since 2015, when he entered the country to join the staff of Breitbart News using a nonimmigrant visa reserved for people with “extraordinary ability.” He did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Mr. Yiannopoulos was a prominent supporter of Donald J. Trump during his 2016 run for president. He was briefly offered a speaking slot at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2017, but abruptly fell from grace after the publication of a video in which he condoned sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and laughed off the seriousness of pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests.
More recently, he made headlines for serving as a temporary staffer for Marjorie Taylor Greene and for working for the fashion brand of Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. In 2022, he claimed credit for organizing a notorious dinner for Mr. Trump and Mr. West that also included the white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Source: “Milo Yiannopoulos, a Right-Wing Provocateur, Is Arrested by ICE”, The New York Times, August 28, 2026. By Chris Cameron, Hamed Aleaziz and Ken Bensinger.