Neither ICE nor Yiannopoulos responded to comment requests

Yiannopoulos, who is 41, grew up in Kent in southern England and currently resides in the United States, according to the BBC. A search of ICE’s inmate registry nationwide showed his name and British origins, and the records indicated he was held in Louisiana. The circumstances of his detention were not immediately clear, and neither ICE nor Yiannopoulos responded to the BBC’s request for comment.

Yiannopoulos rose to prominence in American right-wing media as an editor at Breitbart and later as an employee of rapper Kanye West. He was an early supporter of Trump during the 2016 election, headlining an event called “Gays for Trump” during that year’s Republican National Convention, and has backed the administration’s tighter immigration restrictions. On X last year he wrote: “Total legal immunity for ICE agents when they’re on duty.”

His public commentary has drawn widespread criticism. The BBC reported that Yiannopoulos has been criticized for comments about transgender people, Muslims, Black Lives Matter, feminists, and gay people, even though he once identified as gay. He now calls himself “ex-gay.” He wrote columns with titles including “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” and “Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”

In 2017, Yiannopoulos was uninvited from speaking at CPAC, a U.S. conservative conference that also hosted Trump, after footage emerged that critics said showed him appearing to condone pedophilia. He denied the allegation and said he had been describing his own experiences as a child. He later apologized and resigned from Breitbart.

The BBC described the alt-right, with which Yiannopoulos has been associated, as “a disparate nationalistic group that is outspoken against so-called political correctness and feminism and includes neo-Nazis and white supremacists.” Yiannopoulos has said he does not consider himself part of the alt-right, though he has called the movement “energising and exciting.”

Yiannopoulos has called himself the “most fabulous supervillain on the internet,” according to the BBC. His critics describe him as a purveyor of hate speech.