Green card lottery program suspended by Trump admin
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said the diversity visa lottery program will be suspended after a man accused of killing two Brown University students and an MIT professor was found to have used the system to enter the U.S.
Authorities identified the Brown University shooting suspect as Claudio Valente, 48, a former student at the university. Officials said he died by suicide and was later found in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. The attack left two students dead and nine others injured.
Responding to the shooting, Noem wrote on X: “The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.
“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.
“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.”
Federal prosecutors said late Thursday that investigators believe Valente also carried out the fatal shooting of an MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, in Massachusetts on Monday.
What Is The Green Card Lottery?
The Green Card Lottery Program, officially called the Diversity Visa (DV) Program, randomly awards up to 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to people from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. Winners are selected by a lottery, but must still meet education, work, and background requirements to receive a green card.
Applicants must have at least high school education or equivalent, or two years of qualifying work experience. They must submit basic personal information and a photo, but there is no application fee to enter.
Those selected by the lottery must then complete a formal visa application, pass background and security checks, attend an in-person interview at a U.S. embassy or consulate, and meet medical and financial requirements before a green card is issued.
President Trump has called for the end of the program since 2017, when he said it was “picking the worst of the worst.” He sought to eliminate the program during his first term after a truck attack was carried out by a diversity visa recipient in New York in 2017.
The program was later suspended in 2020, but former President Joe Biden lifted the block in 2021.
Valente’s Entry To U.S.
Valente was briefly a graduate student in physics at Brown University, enrolling in the fall of 2000 and departing in the spring of 2001. He took a leave of absence in April 2001 and formally withdrew two years later. Officials said there was no evidence he knew any of the two students killed or the nine people injured in the attack.
Valente, who had Portuguese roots, first entered the U.S. on a student visa through Boston Logan International Airport in 2000. He became a lawful permanent resident in 2017. It is unclear at this stage what year Valente applied for the DV program.
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