The United States government has decided to suspend the Green Card lottery program (DV1) in light of the shooting at Brown University.
This announcement was made by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on her social media.
«By the directive of President Trump, I am instructing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to immediately halt the DV1 program to ensure that this disastrous program does not harm any American,» Noem stated.
She noted that Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who conducted the shooting, entered the U.S. through the DV1 program in 2017 and received a green card.
«This despicable individual should never have been allowed into our country,» Noem added.
She also reminded that in 2017, President Trump attempted to terminate the DV1 program following a terrorist attack in New York, where an ISIS militant drove a truck into people, killing eight.
The Guardian reports that the suspect in the Brown University shooting, Valente, a citizen of Portugal, entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2000 and received permanent residency in 2017.
Valente was found dead on Thursday, December 18. According to police, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The DV1 visa program provides up to 50,000 green cards each year through a lottery for individuals from low-immigration countries.
In 2025, nearly 20 million people applied for the visa lottery, with over 131,000 selected. After that, they must undergo vetting to gain permanent residency in the U.S. Only 38 spots were won by citizens of Portugal.