U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security, told JNS over the weekend that it put an immigration detainer on the 28-year-old Jordanian man Ahmad Jamal Khamees Alhendi, who is accused of lying to South Carolina Highway Patrol and telling it that there was a bomb in his truck.
Alhendi “legally entered the United States on Sep. 20, 2018, in St Paul, Minn., but failed to comply with the terms of his legal admittance,” Lindsay Williams, a deputy ICE press secretary told JNS. “He has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 6. 2026 before an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.”
Williams told JNS that ICE officers “encountered Alhendi after he was arrested on Jan. 2 by the South Carolina Highway Patrol and charged with breach of peace: high/aggravated nature, conveying false information about a bomb threat and operating an unregistered vehicle.”
ICE places immigration detainers on noncitizens, whom state or local officers arrested for criminal activity. A detainer is a request that law enforcement give ICE as much notice as possible before the accused is released from custody, including holding the person for up to 48 hours after the person would be released so that ICE can assume custody.
The South Carolina Department of Public Safety stated that Alhendi, of Oak Lawn, Ill., was stopped in a tractor-trailer at about 2:45 p.m. on Interstate 85 in Greenville County “due to a missing license plate on the trailer.”
During the stop, Alhendi “indicated that there was an explosive device inside the commercial vehicle. All six lanes of I-85 were subsequently shut down as the threat was investigated by the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office, SLED and the FBI,” the department stated. “The tractor-trailer was cleared and all lanes of I-85 were reopened at approximately 7:40 p.m. on Thurs., Jan. 2.”
Alhendi is charged with breach of peace of a high and aggravated nature and of conveying false information about a bomb threat. Per the arrest warrant, the disruption impacted “hundreds, if not thousands, of travelers and residents in near proximity to the incident.”
Nothing in the arrest warrants suggested any connection between the bomb threat and recent explosions in New Orleans or Las Vegas, which authorities are investigating as terrorism.
