Immigration officials said the man who tried to hijack a United Airlines flight Monday and claimed to have a bomb is a Honduran national who has been deported twice.
The Department of Homeland Security said Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, 34, crossed into Texas in 2011 and into New Mexico in 2014, but was quickly caught and removed both times.
That changed when Mr. Gomez-Alberto hopped the border into California in 2019. A judge allowed him to be released into the country as his immigration case played out in court, Homeland Security said.
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Seven years later, Mr. Gomez-Alberto is accused of saying he had explosives as he tried to storm the cockpit of the United Airlines flight heading from Newark, New Jersey, to New Orleans.
Authorities said the flight crew persuaded him to go to the back of the plane, which landed safely at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office arrested and charged him with communicating false information about planned arson and terrorizing.
Homeland Security said Mr. Alberto-Gomez, who lived in the Bronx, had a criminal history that includes felony bomb threat, felony threat-terroristic state offenses and disorderly conduct.
The suspect is being held without bond at a New Orleans jail.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodged a detainer Tuesday to take custody of Mr. Gomez-Alberto.
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