The Trump administration has suspended the US Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, commonly known as the green card lottery, following the fatal shooting at Brown University earlier this month.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said President Donald Trump directed US Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the DV1 program, citing security concerns after authorities confirmed that the suspected gunman entered the United States through the lottery system in 2017.
The suspect, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48 year old Portuguese national, is accused of killing two students and injuring several others during a shooting at Brown University on December 13. He is also suspected of fatally shooting MIT physics professor Nuno Loureiro days later. Authorities later found Valente dead in New Hampshire and believe he acted alone.
Noem said the pause is intended to allow a review of the program, which allocates up to 50,000 immigrant visas annually to applicants from countries with low US immigration rates. She linked the decision to past attacks involving individuals who entered the US through the same visa system.
Officials said Valente had no known criminal record in the United States and had previously studied physics at Brown University in the early 2000s. Investigators have not disclosed a motive for the shootings.
The suspension revives a long standing effort by Trump to end the visa lottery, which he has criticized for years on security grounds. It remains unclear how long the pause will last or whether the administration will seek permanent changes through Congress.
