US immigration officials arrested controversial British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Yiannopoulos was arrested at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and accused him of overstaying after entering the US legally in May 2019 through New York City
An immigration judge issued a final order of removal on 22 July after Yiannopoulos failed to show up for his immigration hearing, a DHS spokesperson wrote in an email to AP news agency.
"He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation's laws," a spokesperson for DHS wrote in an emailed statement.
ICE's online detainee 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 hub for international flights.
Representatives of Yiannopoulos did not respond to AP's request for comment.
It is unclear whether he has legal representation.
Who is Milo Yiannopoulos?
Yiannopoulos is a well-known champion of conservative causes and has frequently taken provocative public positions on feminism, Islam and immigration.
He has been especially supportive of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
"Zero immigration for the next 20 years. No ifs, no buts," Yiannopoulos wrote on the social platform X last year - despite his own apparent immigration status.
Yiannopoulos rose to fame in the early 2010s as an incendiary writer for the conservative website Breitbart News.
He resigned from the company in 2017 after a video of him endorsing paedophilia resurfaced online.
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He later apologised for the remarks and said he himself was a victim of sexual assault as a minor.
Far-right conservative activist Laura Loomer, who Yiannopoulos has publicly feuded with for years, swiftly took to social media to applaud his arrest.
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 controversial rapper Kanye West, who now calls himself Ye.
Most recently, Yiannopoulos worked as a spokesperson for Ye, who has been beset by controversy of his own following antisemitic comments that the rapper has since apologised for.
(c) Sky News 2026: US immigration officials arrest British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos
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