Donald Trump suspends US visa lottery

The United States green card lottery program has been suspended at the direction of President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced, citing security concerns following the Brown University and MIT shootings.

Noem linked the decision to Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national who initially entered the US on a student visa in 2000 and later became a permanent resident in 2017.

Providence, Rhode Island Police Chief Oscar Perez confirmed Valente was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said on X, reinforcing her support for stricter immigration controls.

Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery, which annually grants up to 50,000 green cards to applicants from countries with low US immigration rates, many of which are in Africa. Noem’s announcement is the latest in a series of policy moves linking immigration regulations to national security incidents.

After a fatal attack on National Guard members in November by an Afghan man, Trump’s administration introduced sweeping restrictions targeting immigration from Afghanistan and several other countries.

Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 lottery, with about 131,000 selected, including spouses.

Winners must pass interviews and undergo the same vetting process required for all green-card applicants before receiving permanent residency.

Friday’s announcement is not the first time Trump has sought to wind down the diversity visa lottery.

Trump has long sought to narrow the country’s pathways to legal immigration, and he has used crime as a pretext for doing so.

Noem herself pointed out that, in 2017, Trump “fought” to shut down the diversity visa lottery in the wake of an attack in New York City in which a truck rammed into a crowd of people, killing eight.

Speaking at a graduation ceremony for the FBI in December 2017, Trump, then in his first term as president, called on Congress to “end the visa lottery system”.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme was established in 1990 to ensure applicants from underrepresented countries had access to the US immigration system.

Immigration rights advocates have long argued that pathways to permanent residency are narrow for those who do not already have a spouse, relative or some other kind of sponsor in the country.

The visa lottery helps to answer that need by creating an alternative route to residency.