Trump Suspends U.S. Green Card Lottery Over Portuguese National’s Brown University Shooting

The reported shooting at Brown University by suspected Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente has had serious consequences, with U.S. President Donald Trump suspending the green card lottery program on Thursday.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the suspension of the program in a post on the social platform X, maintaining that Trump directed the suspension.

She said that the President ordered the immediate pausing of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services program.

The suspect was said to have gained US citizenship through the program.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.

Neves Valente, 48, is wanted in connection with the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and injured nine others, as well as the murder of an MIT professor. He died Thursday evening of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to officials.

According to an affidavit from a Providence police detective, Neves Valente had been studying at Brown on a student visa since 2000.

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According to the affidavit, he received a diversity immigrant visa in 2017 and was granted legal permanent residence status months later.

It was unclear where he was between taking a leave of absence from school in 2001 and receiving his visa in 2017.

The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available by lottery each year to people from underrepresented countries in the United States, many of which are in Africa.

The lottery was established by Congress, and the move is almost certain to face legal challenges.

Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 chosen, including spouses of the winners.

After winning, they must go through vetting to gain admission to the United States. Only 38 of the slots were won by Portuguese citizens.

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Lottery winners are invited to apply for green cards. They are interviewed at consulates and must meet the same requirements and vetting as other green card applicants.

According to NPR, Donald Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the most recent example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy objectives. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a deadly attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed broad restrictions on immigration from Afghanistan and other countries.

While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has attempted to limit or eliminate legal immigration options. He has not been deterred whether they are enshrined in law, such as the diversity visa lottery, or in the Constitution, such as the right to citizenship for anyone born on American soil. The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.