Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, a 34-year-old Honduran national, told passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 2174 that he had a bomb. Then he rushed the cockpit. The pilots triggered a hijack alert somewhere between Newark, New Jersey, and New Orleans on Monday night.
ICE had him in custody in 2019. An immigration judge let him walk.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed the timeline to Fox News, and it reads like an instruction manual on how catch-and-release works in practice. Gomez-Alberto first crossed illegally near El Indio, Texas, in September 2011. Border Patrol caught him. He was removed. He crossed again near Columbus, New Mexico, in October 2014. Border Patrol caught him again. Removed again.
Two deportations. Two illegal re-entries. And in 2019, he showed up a third time — arrested by Border Patrol near the San Ysidro crossing in California. This time, instead of a third removal, ICE held him in custody. And then, in January 2020, an immigration judge ordered his release pending removal proceedings.
He was living in New York when he boarded that Boeing 737 MAX 9 on Monday.
Flight 2174 carried 46 passengers and six crew members. According to authorities, after Gomez-Alberto claimed to have explosives and charged toward the cockpit, the flight crew managed to talk him into moving to the back of the aircraft. The plane landed safely at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, where the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office was waiting.
The charges tell the story: communicating false information of planned arson, terrorizing, felony bomb threat, felony terroristic threat, and disorderly conduct. He's being held without bond at Jefferson Parish Correctional Center. ICE lodged a detainer on November 10.
DHS didn't mince its statement. "Criminal illegal aliens who try to HIJACK AIRPLANES are NOT welcome in the United States," a spokesperson told Fox News. "Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are NOT welcome in the United States."
The FBI and FAA are investigating. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana is reviewing the case for potential federal charges.
The immigration judge who released Gomez-Alberto from ICE custody in January 2020 made a routine procedural decision. That's the defense. It was standard practice to release individuals pending their removal proceedings, especially during that period. But standard practice is exactly the problem — when "standard" means a twice-deported illegal alien with no legal right to be in the country gets released into the general population on the promise he'll show up for a hearing.
This is the system working as designed. That's the part that should keep people up at night. Gomez-Alberto didn't exploit a loophole. He didn't fake documents or outsmart some screening process. He walked across the border three separate times, got caught all three times, and on the third catch, the system itself opened the door and said go ahead, we'll sort this out later.
Six years later, he was on a commercial aircraft claiming to have a bomb.
Forty-six passengers and six crew members were in the air with a man the federal government had in its hands and chose to release. The removal proceedings that justified his freedom in January 2020 apparently never resulted in removal. He was still here. Still in New York. Still boarding flights.
The Jefferson Parish Correctional Center is holding him without bond now. ICE has a detainer filed. Six years and one attempted hijacking after the system had every reason — and every legal authority — to send him home for good.
