Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has ordered the suspension of the green card lottery program at the direction of President Donald Trump, stating that the program allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to enter the United States.
The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, initially entered the US on a student visa in 2000 and became a permanent resident in 2017, according to Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez. Valente was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Thursday evening.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said on social media platform X. Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery, and Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals.
The DV1 visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries with low immigration rates to the US, many in Africa. Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected including spouses. After winning, they must undergo vetting. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card and are interviewed at consulates, subject to the same requirements and vetting as other applicants.
