Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has suspended the green card lottery program aimed at letting people from countries with low immigration rates into the United States.
Noem is enforcing the suspension because the alleged Brown University shooter used the diversity immigrant visa system to enter the U.S. The shooter, a Portuguese national, allegedly killed two students, an MIT professor, and wounded 9 others.
The secretary said she made the move at President Donald Trump’s direction.
“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,” she wrote on X.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the alleged shooter, entered the country through the program in 2017. Noem noted Trump tried to end the program in 2017 following the New York City truck ramming that killed several people.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of Neves Valente.
The move is the next in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, this time coming in response to the 48-year-old Neves Valente’s alleged shooting rampage.
Police found the shooter dead in a New Hampshire storage unit on Thursday evening. The finding ended a nearly six-day manhunt for the suspect, who killed himself, according to police.
Neves Valente first entered the country on a student visa in 2000 to study at Brown, according to a police affidavit. Then, in 2017, he was issued the diversity immigrant visa before obtaining permanent legal status. It’s unclear where he had been since leaving the school in 2001 and 2017.
The diversity visa program issues up to 50,000 green cards each year, commonly to countries that aren’t usually represented in the U.S. In 2025, nearly 20 million people applied for the visa lottery, with 131,000 total selected, including their spouses. Winners must undergo vetting.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card and are subject to the same interviews and vetting as other applicants.
BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTING SUSPECT FOUND DEAD IN NEW HAMPSHIRE STORAGE UNIT
The Trump administration is expected to face challenges for its shuttering of the diversity visa lottery system.
Congress created the diversity visa program through the Immigration Act of 1990, and it’s unclear whether the executive branch can end the program without congressional approval.
