U.S. President Donald Trump has suspended the green card diversity lottery program following revelations that the suspect linked to the deadly Brown University shooting and the killing of an MIT professor entered the United States through the program.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday that, at Trump’s direction, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been ordered to pause the lottery.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said, referring to Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Valente, 48, was suspected of killing two students and wounding nine others in a mass shooting at Brown University, as well as murdering an MIT professor in Massachusetts. Authorities said he was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
According to a Providence police affidavit, Valente first entered the United States on a student visa in 2000 to study at Brown University. After taking a leave of absence in 2001, his whereabouts for more than a decade remain unclear. In 2017, he was granted a diversity immigrant visa and later obtained legal permanent resident status.
The diversity visa lottery, created by Congress, offers up to 50,000 green cards annually to applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 lottery, with more than 131,000 selected, including family members. Portuguese nationals received just 38 slots.
Lottery winners must undergo background checks, interviews at U.S. consulates, and the same vetting requirements as other green card applicants before gaining permanent residency.
Trump has long criticized the diversity lottery, and the suspension is expected to face legal challenges, as the program is established in federal law.
The move follows a pattern of the Trump administration citing high-profile violent incidents to advance restrictive immigration measures. Earlier this year, sweeping limits were imposed on immigration from Afghanistan and other countries after an Afghan national was accused in a fatal attack on National Guard members.
As Trump continues to push mass deportations, his administration has also sought to curb legal immigration pathways, including those protected by statute or constitutional interpretation. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear Trump’s challenge to birthright citizenship, further underscoring the administration’s aggressive immigration agenda.
