President Donald Trump explained why Egypt was not included on his recent list of the 12 countries banned from traveling to the U.S., saying the government has “things under control.”
“Egypt has been a country that we deal with very closely. They have things under control. The countries that we have [on the banned list] don’t have things under control,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration banned citizens from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the U.S. and restricted access for citizens of seven other nations.
The sweeping move by the administration comes as a reaction to the antisemitic attack last Sunday in Boulder, Colorado, when Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, threw Molotov cocktails on a group of Jewish organizers marching on behalf of hostages still held in Gaza.
Soliman, who was born in Egypt and then lived in Kuwait for 17 years before moving to the U.S., was in the country illegally and had overstayed a work Visa. “The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colo., has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,” Trump said announcing the travel ban. “We don’t want them.”
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