Milo Yiannopoulos, the British far-right commentator who was arrested last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Louisiana and deported to the United Kingdom, has broken his silence about the experience, saying that “for the first time I know what it feels like to be really, really terrified”.
Yiannopoulos on Tuesday appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored, a YouTube show presented by Piers Morgan, the British broadcaster and media personality. Yiannopoulos, 41, described the experience in the US as “humiliating and disorientating”, “physically degrading” and “frightening”.
He also said that he was “ashamed” of his previous support for Donald Trump, who has pursued an agenda of mass deportation throughout his second presidency.
“I didn’t really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America,” he said. “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.”
His remarks came just days after he was deported from the US, after being arrested on Thursday by ICE officers at the New Orleans airport.
In a statement last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, said Yiannopoulos had “legally entered the country” in May 2019, but “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws”.
Yiannopoulos was an early supporter of Trump before Trump first became US president in 2016. He is a former editor of Breitbart News and later worked to help the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, explore a presidential run in 2024.
The homeland security department said Yiannopoulos was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on 22 July “after failing to show up for his immigration hearing”.
In the Piers Morgan interview, Yiannopoulos disputed the government’s account and denied previously overstaying a visa. He said he is married to an American, and claimed he held a green card that he was “renewing on a two-year basis”.
The Guardian has contacted homeland security and the White House for comment on Yiannopoulos’s remarks.
Yiannopoulos also said that while he was detained, “no one would tell me anything” – a common complaint from people held in ICE custody.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been frightened like that before,” he told Morgan. “I think maybe in the past I’ve been a little bit blasé when people talked about their trauma, a little bit cavalier when people talked about stuff kind of lingering with them, but I get it now … I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Last year, in posts on social media, Yiannopoulos had been supportive of Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
In one post, he 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 and millions of people. Without that, nothing else matters.”
In another post, Yiannopoulos said that 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”.
During Tuesday’s interview, Yiannopoulos said of his past support for 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 and I’m very ashamed that I did.”
