The Trump administration has paused the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery, known as the Green Card Lottery program after authorities determined that the suspect in the recent Brown University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology shootings entered the United States through the program. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the suspension Thursday, noting that the action was taken at President Donald Trump’s direction.
Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, was issued a green card through the DV program in 2017 and later became a legal permanent resident. Authorities reported that Neves Valente was responsible for the fatal shootings of two Brown students and an MIT professor. He was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit Thursday, ending a multi-day investigation.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem remarked on social media, adding that she had directed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the DV program immediately “to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”
The diversity visa program, created by Congress, grants up to 55,000 visas annually to applicants from countries with low immigration rates to the United States, with recipients selected through a lottery. Applicants must meet educational or work experience requirements and undergo background checks and interviews before receiving a visa. The program has long faced criticism from Trump, who previously cited security concerns after violent incidents involving individuals who entered the U.S. through the lottery.
The pause is part of a broader pattern in which the administration has restricted certain immigration pathways following violent events, including recent actions affecting Afghan nationals and asylum seekers. Legal experts have questioned whether the president has the authority to suspend the program, which is overseen primarily by the State Department.
