British far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who was recently deported from the United States after being accused of overstaying his visa, spoke about the experience, saying, “for the first time I know what it feels like to be really, really terrified.” Yiannopoulos appeared Tuesday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored, a YouTube show hosted by British broadcaster and media personality Piers Morgan.
Yiannopoulos described his experience as “humiliating and disorientating,” “physically degrading” and “frightening.” He also said he was “ashamed” of his previous support for President Donald Trump, who has pushed for aggressive immigration enforcement during his second term.
“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.”
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Yiannopoulos was deported from the U.S. after being arrested Thursday by ICE officers at the New Orleans airport. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, said in a statement that 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. He is a former editor of Breitbart News and later worked to help rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, explore a presidential run in 2024.
The Department of Homeland Security said Yiannopoulos was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on July 22 “after failing to show up for his immigration hearing.”
Yiannopoulos also said that while he was detained, “no one would tell me anything.” According to The Guardian, this is a common complaint among ICE detainees.
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“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.”
Yiannopoulos had previously supported Trump’s immigration crackdown. “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,” he had written.
Yiannopoulos said during Tuesday’s interview about 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.”