Trump Administration Halts U.S. Green Card Lottery After Deadly Campus Attacks
The Trump administration suspended the U.S. green card lottery after a campus shooting suspect was found to have entered the country through the program.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – The Trump administration on Thursday suspended the United States’ diversity visa lottery, a decades-old immigration program, after authorities said the suspect in a deadly mass shooting at two elite universities had entered the country through the scheme, according to an AFP report.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the immediate suspension of the green card lottery, formally known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, following revelations about the immigration history of Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national accused of carrying out a string of fatal attacks in Massachusetts.
The decision marks one of the most sweeping and abrupt immigration actions taken by the administration since President Donald Trump returned to office, and it reopens a long-running political debate over the lottery’s role in the U.S. immigration system.
According to AFP, Noem said Neves Valente entered the United States in 2017 through the diversity lottery program and was subsequently granted permanent residency.
In a post on social media, she said the program had been exploited by the suspect and posed an unacceptable risk to public safety. “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,” Noem wrote, adding that “this heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.”
The suspension follows a wave of shock and mourning after a violent rampage that authorities say began on December 13 at Brown University, one of the United States’ prestigious Ivy League institutions.
Neves Valente is accused of entering a campus building during examinations and opening fire on students, killing two and wounding nine others, AFP reported. The attack sent students and faculty scrambling for safety and prompted a large-scale law enforcement response.
The violence did not end there. Two days later, Neves Valente allegedly killed a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, deepening fears that a serial attacker was at large and intensifying the manhunt across the region.
Police said on Thursday evening that the suspect was ultimately found dead by suicide after several days of pursuit, bringing a grim close to one of the most unsettling episodes to strike American higher education campuses in recent years, according to AFP.
The administration’s response has been swift and uncompromising. By linking the suspect’s actions directly to the diversity visa program, senior officials framed the suspension as a necessary measure to prevent similar tragedies.
Noem’s statement echoed long-standing criticism from President Trump, who has repeatedly denounced the lottery as arbitrary and dangerous, arguing that it prioritizes chance over merit and security considerations.
The diversity visa lottery grants up to 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to individuals from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the United States, AFP noted, citing the State Department.
The program was designed to broaden the demographic composition of legal immigration and provide opportunities to applicants from regions that are otherwise underrepresented in U.S. migration flows.
Eligibility requirements for the lottery are relatively straightforward. Applicants must have at least a high school education or its equivalent, or two years of training or work experience in a qualifying occupation.
Successful applicants are then subject to a vetting process that includes background checks and an in-person interview before a visa is issued. Supporters of the program have long argued that it is no less rigorous than other legal immigration pathways and that it has enabled hundreds of thousands of people to immigrate legally over the years.
Critics, however, have consistently targeted the lottery as a security vulnerability, contending that random selection undermines careful screening. Those criticisms intensified after several high-profile crimes in the past were linked—rightly or wrongly—to individuals who had immigrated through the program.
The Trump administration had previously sought to eliminate or drastically reform the lottery, but those efforts stalled amid political opposition and legislative gridlock.
Thursday’s suspension represents the most decisive action yet. While officials did not specify how long the pause would last or whether it would affect applicants already selected, the directive to halt the DV1 program immediately signals a broader reassessment of the system. It also raises questions about the future of one of the United States’ most distinctive immigration channels.
For immigrant communities around the world, the announcement is likely to reverberate far beyond Washington. Each year, millions apply for the lottery, viewing it as a rare and lawful pathway to permanent residence in the United States. For now, that pathway has been abruptly closed, as the administration argues that national security concerns must take precedence.
As investigators continue to piece together the motives behind Neves Valente’s attacks, the political consequences are already clear. A single act of violence has reshaped immigration policy overnight, reinforcing how deeply questions of security, migration, and public safety are intertwined in the American political landscape.