President Donald Trump has ordered an immediate suspension of the United States’ diversity visa program, popularly known as the green card lottery.
This follows the deadly shootings at Brown University and the killing of a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
The suspension was announced on Thursday by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said she was acting at the direct instruction of the president.
In a post on the social media platform X, Noem said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) had been directed to pause the program, which grants permanent residency through a lottery system.
‘’The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.
‘’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. 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.’’
U.S. authorities have identified the suspect as Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national. He is believed to be responsible for a shooting at Brown University that killed two students and injured nine others, as well as the fatal shooting of an MIT professor.
Officials said Neves Valente was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, bringing an end to a manhunt that had gripped parts of the northeastern United States.
According to court documents, Neves Valente first entered the U.S. in 2000 on a student visa to attend Brown University. He reportedly took a leave of absence in 2001. Years later, in 2017, he obtained a diversity immigrant visa and was granted lawful permanent resident status. Authorities said it remains unclear where he lived or what activities he engaged in during the years between leaving school and receiving the green card.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has been excluded from the U.S. Diversity Visa program for several years because it is classified as a “high-admission” country. Under the rules of the program, countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. in the past five years through family-sponsored or employment-based visas are not eligible.
This is designed to preserve the lottery’s original goal of promoting immigration diversity from countries with low historical migration to the United States. As a result, Nigerians born in Nigeria cannot participate in the lottery, although some exceptions exist for those born abroad or with eligible parents.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program awards up to 50,000 visas annually through a random lottery. Selected applicants must still undergo extensive background checks, interviews, and security screening before receiving permanent residency.
Suspending the program is part of a wider series of immigration measures by the Trump administration, often implemented in response to violent incidents attributed to lax immigration policies. Earlier, the administration restricted immigration from developing countries following an attack by an Afghan national on National Guard soldiers in Washington.
Additionally, the administration has proposed a $100,000 application fee for H-1B visas, implemented extended vetting for tourists, intensified deportation efforts in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, and planned to expand immigration detention facilities with new “mega centres” across the country.