Green card lottery policy returned to the national spotlight Thursday after President Donald Trump suspended the federal program following revelations about a deadly campus shooting suspect. The decision came after authorities confirmed the suspect entered the United States through the diversity visa system.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would pause the program at President Trump’s direction. “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said. Investigators identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who obtained permanent residency through the diversity visa lottery in 2017, according to the Boston Globe.
Authorities say Neves Valente is suspected of killing two Brown University students, wounding nine others, and murdering an MIT professor before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Court records show he first entered the United States in 2000 on a student visa to attend Brown University. Officials said it remains unclear where he lived between leaving Brown and receiving a green card. Investigators also confirmed he had ties to the slain MIT professor, with both men studying physics and attending the same university in Lisbon.
The diversity visa program, commonly known as DV1, distributes up to 50,000 green cards annually through random selection to applicants from countries with low immigration rates. President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the program, warning it bypasses merit-based screening and raises national security concerns.
“In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people,” Noem said. That attacker, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, later admitted ties to ISIS.
“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program,” Noem added.
The suspension marks a renewed push by the Trump administration to tighten immigration controls following high-profile acts of violence tied to visa programs.
