Milo Yiannopoulos, a British provocateur who promoted far-right conspiracies and racism in the United States, was deported to Britain on Friday, according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security.
Mr. Yiannopoulos, an early supporter of Donald J. Trump who later dabbled in helping the rapper formerly known as Kanye West explore a run for president, had been arrested on Thursday by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
D.H.S. said in a statement that Mr. Yiannopoulos had entered the country legally in 2019 but overstayed his visa. He was issued a final deportation order by an immigration judge in July after he failed to show up for his hearing, according to the department.
The Trump administration used Mr. Yiannopoulos’s arrest as a warning to other migrants to self deport, as ICE agents step up arrests at airports of foreign citizens with expired visas. On Friday, D.H.S. posted his arrest photo on social media, saying immigration officials were offering a free flight and $3,000 for those who chose to “take control of their departure.”
Mr. Yiannopoulos did not respond to messages seeking comment. He had lived in the United States for more than a decade, joining the staff of Breitbart News on a nonimmigrant visa reserved for people with “extraordinary ability.” He has frequently tested the limits of his provocations with incendiary remarks about Islam, feminism and immigrants.
Mr. Yiannopoulos has also reveled in Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Last year on social media he called for “on the spot deportation” for those who couldn’t prove they were in the country legally.
He was deported a decade after becoming an early and prominent supporter of Mr. Trump’s first run for office. His influence did not last long: In 2017, a video was released in which he condoned sexual relations with boys as young as 13 and seemed to minimize pedophilia by Roman Catholic priests. Those comments appeared to cost him a book deal, his job at Breitbart and an invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC.
In 2022, Mr. Yiannopoulos claimed credit for arranging a dinner that included Mr. Trump, Mr. West and the white supremacist Nick Fuentes. He went on to join an exploratory presidential campaign for Mr. West, by then known as Ye, and later worked for the rapper’s fashion brand.
Mr. Yiannopoulos was banned from the site then known as Twitter in 2016 but reinstated in 2022 after Elon Musk purchased the platform. He posts almost daily on X. He has yet to publicly comment on his deportation.
