Updated Dec 19, 2025 - Politics & Policy

Trump pauses green card lottery program after Brown University, MIT shootings

Rebecca Falconer

A standing, dark-haired Security Kristi Noem, wearing a brown suit jacket with a black top over a brown dress, clasps her hands and looks at President Trump, sitting at a brown desk in the White House, wearing a navy jacket, white shirt and blue tie, clasping his hands while speaking. — Homeland Security Kristi Noem and President Trump at the White House in November. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

President Trump ordered the suspension of a green card lottery program that enabled the suspect in the Brown University mass shooting and killing of an MIT professor to live in the U.S, a top official announced late Thursday.

The big picture: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's announcement marks the latest Trump administration effort to limit legal immigration amid a wider crackdown that's triggered a wave of lawsuits.

Driving the news: Officials at a Thursday night briefing announcing the suspect in the shootings had been found dead said the Portuguese national had studied at Brown in the 2000s and went on to gain a green card via the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery program (DV1) in 2017.

Noem said on X that Trump had told her to "immediately" direct U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to pause the "disastrous" program "to ensure no more Americans are harmed" by it.
"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," she said of the suspect, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente.

State of play: The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program awards up to 55,000 immigrant visas each year for people from countries with low immigration rates, per a U.S. government web page.

It's likely the suspension of the program that Congress established will face legal challenges from immigration advocacy groups.
Trump called on lawmakers to end the DV1 program during his first term.

Go deeper: Trump brings legal immigration to a screeching halt

Editor's note: This article has been updated with additional details throughout.

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Trump pauses green card lottery program after Brown University, MIT shootings

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