Trump Suspends Green Card Lottery After Brown University Shootings
5 weeks ago
President Donald Trump has suspended the federal green card lottery program after authorities confirmed that the suspect in the Brown University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology shootings entered the United States through the system.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that, at Trump’s direction, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is pausing the diversity visa lottery. In a post on social media, Noem described the suspect as a “heinous individual” who should never have been allowed into the country.
The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national and former Brown University student, is accused of killing two Brown students, wounding nine others, and fatally shooting an MIT professor. He was later found dead in New Hampshire from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials.
Neves Valente initially came to the U.S. on a student visa and later obtained legal permanent residency in 2017 through the diversity visa lottery program. The program, created by Congress, makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year to applicants from countries with historically low immigration rates to the United States.
Trump has long criticized the lottery system, and the suspension is expected to face legal challenges since the program is established in federal law.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that, at Trump’s direction, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is pausing the diversity visa lottery. In a post on social media, Noem described the suspect as a “heinous individual” who should never have been allowed into the country.
The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national and former Brown University student, is accused of killing two Brown students, wounding nine others, and fatally shooting an MIT professor. He was later found dead in New Hampshire from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials.
Neves Valente initially came to the U.S. on a student visa and later obtained legal permanent residency in 2017 through the diversity visa lottery program. The program, created by Congress, makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year to applicants from countries with historically low immigration rates to the United States.
Trump has long criticized the lottery system, and the suspension is expected to face legal challenges since the program is established in federal law.
