Far-right British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who once embraced United States President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, has made his first public remarks after his US arrest and deportation.
In an interview released on Tuesday, Yiannopoulos spoke to host Piers Morgan about his experience, telling the interviewer that he now knows what it’s like to be “really, really terrified”.
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“I didn’t really understand the physical reality of how institutionalised the brutality is in America,” Yiannopoulos said.
As he described having his hands and feet chained together while in custody, he criticised immigration authorities for treating ordinary detainees like criminals.
“Everybody arrested is like an MS-۱۳ gang member, and it hurts a lot more than it looks like on television,” he said of the manacles he was forced to wear.
Yiannopoulos was arrested by US federal agents after arriving at the airport in New Orleans, Louisiana, last Thursday. The ۴۱-year-old conservative firebrand was subsequently sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in a process he called “humiliating” and “disorienting”.
“It was frightening, and I don’t think I’ve ever been frightened like that before,” Yiannopoulos said.
Differing accounts
Yiannopoulos allegedly entered the US legally on May ۱۴, ۲۰۱۹.
But afterwards, Yiannopoulos overstayed his visa, according to the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It claimed Yiannopoulos was issued a deportation order in July after he missed a scheduled immigration hearing.
White House border tsar Tom Homan echoed that assertion in an interview with CNN on Sunday, saying it was Yiannopoulos’s fault he was deported.
“He was ordered to appear in immigration court. He didn’t show up. The judge ordered him deported,” Homan told CNN’s Dana Bash. “He had his due process order removed by a federal judge, and I removed him. It’s that simple.”
In his interview with Morgan, Yiannopoulos claimed Homan was lying and suggested that his shifting politics could have been a factor in his deportation.
“I don’t really do, you know, the right-wing provocateur thing any more. I manage lawyers for a living. You know, I’m an organised and together person when, you know, I’m not being silly on Twitter,” Yiannopoulos said.
“And I’m married to an American. There’s no reason I would take a risk like this. I didn’t need to overstay a visa.”
A ‘cancelled’ green card
Yiannopoulos told Morgan that after he got married in ۲۰۱۷, he filed for an “adjustment of status” that allowed him to switch from a visa to a green card, which allows lawful permanent residency in the US.
But the US cancelled his green card, Yiannopoulos said, without offering proof.
He also claimed that notices informing him of the change were deliberately sent to an old address so he would be removed from the country.
“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,” Yiannopoulos said.
Yiannopoulos pledged he would fight his “unjust” deportation in court, calling the process “unlawful”.
“It’s quite obvious that the government has maliciously and deviously, in a very underhanded way, created a scenario in which they could scoop me up and eject me to make an example out of me,” he said.
Al Jazeera reached out to ICE and DHS for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Changing stance
In the past, Yiannopoulos was known for being a vocal Trump supporter. He even expressed enthusiasm for the mass deportation campaign and immigration restrictions Trump pursued upon winning a second term in office.
In December ۲۰۲۴, for instance, Yiannopoulos called for “zero immigration for the next ۲۰ years”.
In June ۲۰۲۵, he also wrote that there should be immigration checkpoints in California, “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”.
But in Tuesday’s interview, Yiannopoulos said he was “ashamed” to have supported the US president.
He also expressed scepticism about Trump’s claims to be deporting the “worst of the worst”, pointing out that immigrants without criminal records were being swept up in the immigration raids.
“If ICE were doing its job and clearing America out of the people who rape, kill, murder, and sell drugs – and a couple of extra people got caught up in the dragnet, and if I was one of them – nobody would have very much to say,” Yiannopoulos said. “But they’re not doing that.”
Yiannopoulos told Morgan that his experience being detained gave him a new perspective on the criminal justice system.
“I think maybe, in the past, I’ve been a little bit blase when people talked about their trauma,” he said. “But I get it now, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Feud with Laura Loomer
Yiannopoulos’s deportation from the US comes after a years-long public feud with close Trump ally Laura Loomer. After news of his detention surfaced, Loomer appeared to take credit.
She also pointed to Yiannopoulos’s work with former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, another Trump supporter-turned-critic.
“I was the first person to report on the fact that Milo was in the US illegally where he incited violence against President Trump and worked for Marjorie Traitor Greene,” Loomer wrote on X. “When Milo called for me to be assassinated, I reported him to ICE and FBI.”
When asked about what role Loomer may have played in his deportation, Yiannapoulos said she “is more of a danger to themselves than to others”.
He also repeated questions he has made in the past about her mental health.
“I find it difficult in a way to hold anything against her, because I don’t think she’s well,” he said. “And whenever the Laura Loomer show comes crashing down, as I’m sure it will any moment, I think she’s going to need a lot of prayer.”
