What to know about the diversity immigrant visas halted after Brown shooting
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The Trump administration halted a visa program targeted at nations with low rates of entry to the U.S. after it was linked to the suspect in a recent mass shooting at Brown University.
Why it matters: President Trump has repeatedly seized on crimes allegedly committed by immigrants as an opportunity to further limit immigration.
Driving the news: The suspect, a Portuguese national also believed to have killed an MIT professor, was found dead on Thursday.
- "This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X Thursday night.
- A State Department spokesperson called the visa program a "threat" Friday and said it is "working closely with Department of Homeland Security to put in place all necessary measures to protect America."
- The White House referred Axios to DHS, which said Trump has taken efforts to end the diversity visa since his first administration.
The big picture: The diversity visa program, established by the Immigration Act of 1990, allows up to 55,000 people to enter the U.S. annually from countries with low rates of immigration, per the State Department.
- Applicants are chosen through a randomized computer drawing.
- No single country may receive more than 7% of the available diversity visas in any one year.
State of play: The list of eligible countries changes each year.
- Dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and South America were included in the list for fiscal year 2026.
- The only North American country was the Bahamas.
- People from Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Korea and Venezuela are ineligible because more than 50,000 people from those countries immigrated to the U.S. in the previous five years.
The fine print: Eligibility for the lottery includes high school graduation or qualifying work experience.
- Applicants have to submit birth certificates, court and prison records, military records, police certificates and photocopy of passport data page.
- There's no cost to register for the program, but people who make it to the interview stage must pay a visa application fee before making their formal visa application.
What we're watching: Applicants for the FY2026 lottery had to submit electronic entries between October and November 2024. It's unclear how the Trump administration's pause will affect those applicants.
Zoom out: The Trump administration has repeatedly responded to crime with widespread immigration policy changes.
- After a suspect from Afghanistan shot two National Guard members in D.C. last month, the administration paused all immigration applications from 19 countries it determined to be "high risk."
Flashback: During his first term, Trump asked Congress to terminate the diversity visa program after an Uzbek national killed eight people in Manhattan in 2017.
- In 2019, Trump implemented a passport requirement for lottery applicants that was later halted by courts, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Friday.
- In 2020, he suspended diversity visa processing, McLaughlin added. Former President Biden later restarted it.
Go deeper: Trump pauses green card lottery program after Brown University, MIT shootings
Editor's note: This story has been updated with comment from DHS.
