The Trump administration has ordered an immediate pause to the United States Diversity Visa Immigrant Programme, commonly known as the green card lottery, following a deadly shooting involving a beneficiary of the scheme, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday.
In a post on X, Noem said the Brown University shooting suspect, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, entered the United States through the diversity visa programme in 2017 and was later granted permanent residency.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote.
She said President Donald Trump had previously sought to end the programme during his first term, citing the 2017 New York City truck-ramming attack in which an ISIS-inspired attacker killed eight people after entering the U.S. under the same visa category.
“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 said.
The Diversity Visa programme allows up to 50,000 immigrants annually to obtain green cards through a lottery system aimed at increasing immigration from underrepresented countries.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately provide details on how long the suspension would last or how it would affect applicants already selected under the programme.
