DHS: Twice-Deported Man Accused of Rushing United Cockpit Got Asylum After Claiming to Be Transgender

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on November 13, 2026

The man accused of trying to storm the cockpit of a United Airlines flight on Monday night was not just a twice-deported illegal alien. According to the Department of Homeland Security, a judge had granted him asylum after he said he feared being killed for being transgender.

In a release on Thursday, DHS said that Rony Alexander Gomez-Alberto, a Honduran national, was “allowed into the country after he tried to illegally enter for a third time because he claimed asylum, citing he was afraid he would be killed because he is transgender.” DHS published what it says is his asylum application alongside the release.

TNT reported Wednesday on the Nov. 9 incident aboard United Flight 2174 from Newark to New Orleans. Authorities say Gomez-Alberto tried to get into the cockpit and claimed to have a bomb. No bomb was found. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office inmate roster still lists him in parish custody on state charges of terrorizing (La. R.S. 14:40.1) and communicating false information of planned arson (La. R.S. 14:54.1), both dated Nov. 10, plus a fugitive entry dated Nov. 10 and, dated Nov. 11, attempted simple or aggravated escape and battery of a correctional officer. DHS’s Nov. 12 release instead described the post-landing charges as “felony bomb threat, terroristic threats, and disorderly conduct”; disorderly conduct does not appear on the current parish roster. ICE lodged a detainer on Nov. 10, asking local authorities not to release him without notifying ICE. As of Friday morning, TNT found no federal complaint or indictment announced by the Justice Department or the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He is presumed innocent.

What’s new

Earlier this week, DHS said only that Gomez-Alberto had been removed twice and “released a third time, pending removal proceedings, by a judge.” Thursday’s written release says a judge later granted him asylum after a transgender claim, and it published what it says is his application. The release does not give a date for that grant, and it does not say whether the grant is the same decision as the release pending removal proceedings DHS described on Nov. 10. DHS was still using the “released … pending removal proceedings” wording on its official X account Thursday morning.

The timeline, as DHS has described it: Border Patrol caught him crossing illegally in 2011 and he was removed. He crossed again in 2014 and was removed a second time. When he was caught on a third illegal entry, in 2019, he claimed asylum. Thursday’s release says “a judge granted him asylum after he claimed to be transgender, allowing him to stay in the country.”

“This twice-deported criminal illegal alien was allowed into our country because of a weak asylum system that allowed him to game the system,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said.

How identity claims became a back door

Asylum law protects people who face persecution for who they are. That is a real protection, and it is meant for real cases. But a claim about identity is easy to make and hard to disprove, which is exactly why fraudsters like it. An immigration judge can’t run a lab test on someone’s stated fear. If the story is consistent and the applicant says the right words, the case often turns on credibility alone.

Here, according to DHS, that system took a man who had already been removed twice, heard a new claim on his third try, and gave him legal status. Nobody proved he belonged here. A judge decided his story was credible enough. Americans flying from Newark on Monday night are the ones who found out what that cost.

DHS says it is responding. In May, the department directed ICE to take additional steps against fraudulent asylum claims, including enforcing 8 U.S.C. § 1324c(d), which sets penalties for document fraud. Under that directive, DHS says ICE attorneys have more authority to act, including against immigration lawyers who file false claims. Asylum fraud can also be prosecuted as a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 1546 and § 1001.

The same release lists recent cases. In one, five Cuban nationals and a U.S. citizen were sentenced in Florida on Oct. 29 for a smuggling and asylum-fraud enterprise that DHS says brought thousands of people into the country illegally, partly through a sham business that “churned out boilerplate asylum claims.” In another, a suburban Chicago businessman was sentenced in May to nine years in prison for, among other crimes, fabricating foreign police reports and political-party letters to back clients’ asylum claims.

The bigger picture

According to DHS, from Jan. 20, 2025, to Nov. 10, 2026, ICE arrested 2,312 known or suspected terrorists and deported 2,157. Every one of them got into the country somehow. Many came the way Gomez-Alberto did: across the border, through the courts, and back again.

The lesson of Flight 2174 isn’t about transgender people, almost none of whom will ever be accused of anything like this. It’s that any asylum category that runs on unverifiable claims will be gamed by people who have already shown they won’t follow the law. A man deported twice should not be able to get a third chance by saying a new set of words. Closing that loophole is not cruelty. It is the minimum Americans should expect before they board a plane.

Sources: U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Nov. 12, 2026 release; Nov. 10, 2026 statement on X); TNT, Nov. 11, 2026.

TNT Staff