Trump suspends US green card lottery in wake of Brown University and MIT shootings
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem pauses high-profile visa program, saying shooting suspect Claudio Neves Valente gained green card in 2017
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, has ordered the suspension of the green card lottery program at Donald Trump’s direction, saying it allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the US.
Suspect Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, initially entered the US on a student visa in 2000 and later became a permanent resident in 2017, according to Oscar Perez, the police chief in Providence, Rhode Island. Valente was found dead on Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said on X.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals.
After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
The DV1 visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the US, many of them in Africa.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the US. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
More to come.
Trump suspends U.S. green card lottery after Brown University shooting
Published Fri, Dec 19 20254:57 AM ESTUpdated Fri, Dec 19 20251:54 PM EST
Key Points
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said President Donald Trump instructed her to have the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services pause the diversity visa (DV1) program.
- Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente is suspected of being the shooter who killed two students and wounded nine others at Brown University on Saturday.
- Valente entered the U.S. through the DV1 program in 2017 and was granted a green card, according to Noem.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a House Homeland Security hearing entitled “Worldwide Threats to the Homeland,” on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S. Dec. 11, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she was suspending the diversity visa program at President Donald Trump’s direction, saying the man suspected of killing two students at Brown University and a MIT professor had been granted one.
Noem posted on X late Thursday that she had instructed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the (DV1) program “to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”
On Dec. 13, two students died and nine others were injured when someone opened fire at the physics building at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Police later identified Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, as the suspect.
Valente was a former student at the university and had been enrolled in a Ph.D. program in physics in 2000, the university’s president, Christina H. Paxson, said. Valente is also suspected of having killed MIT physics professor Nuno Loureiro, 47, in his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, two days after the Brown shooting. Valente and Loureiro are believed to have attended the same university in their native Portugal.
Authorities announced the suspect’s identity hours after Valente was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility on Thursday, Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said. Guns were also found at the scene.
“There’s no longer a threat to the public,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston said in a statement after Valente’s death was confirmed. Authorities believe Valente acted alone and have not disclosed a motive for the killings.
Noem said that Valente entered the U.S. through the DV1 program in 2017 and was granted a green card.
“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,” she wrote on X.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV Program) allocates up to 50,000 immigrant visas every year, according to the USCIS website.
The program is a lottery. Visas are randomly allocated to individuals from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S.
— Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
