US President Donald Trump has suspended the green card lottery programme, which admitted a Portuguese national accused of deadly shootings at Brown University and MIT.
Trump
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the pause on social platform X, directing US Citizenship and Immigration Services to halt the Diversity Visa Program at Trump’s order.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said of 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente.
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Valente allegedly burst into a Brown University building on Dec. 13, 2025, firing on students during exams, killing two and wounding nine, according to a Providence police affidavit.
Two days later, he allegedly killed an MIT professor.
Valente studied at Brown on a student visa from 2000, took a leave in 2001, and won a diversity visa in 2017, gaining permanent residence months later. His whereabouts in between remain unclear.
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The congressional programme offers up to 50,000 green cards yearly via lottery to underrepresented nations, including many in Africa. Nearly 20 million applied for 2025 visas; 131,000 winners, plus spouses, face vetting and interviews like other applicants.
The suspension, targeting a programme created by Congress, is likely to face legal challenges.
