The United States has announced the suspension of the Diversity Visa (green card) lottery following the shooting at Brown University. U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem stated that the suspect in the attack had entered the country through this program.
“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — Yep.uz) to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program,” Noem wrote on her X social media page.
According to her, the shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, arrived in the U.S. in 2017 after winning a green card through the Diversity Visa (DV1) program and later obtained permanent residency.
“The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote.
The shooting occurred on December 14 near the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex housing the engineering and physics departments of Brown University. Graduation exams were taking place at the university that day. Two people were killed and about 20 were injured in the attack.
On December 18, 48-year-old Valente was found dead in a warehouse. According to NBC News sources, he had been a physics student at Brown University in 2000.
During his first presidential term, Donald Trump had also called for the cancellation of the green card lottery. The impetus at that time was the October 31, 2017, terrorist attack in New York, which killed eight people. The attack was carried out by Sayfullo Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, who, according to Trump, had also entered the U.S. by winning a green card in the lottery.
The police at the time classified the incident as a terrorist act and reported that the attacker had ties to the Islamic State.
Under the Diversity Visa Lottery Program (DVLP), 50,000 green cards are drawn each year for citizens of countries with low immigration rates to the U.S. The program has been in operation since 1990 and is administered by the U.S. Department of State. Citizens of all countries may participate, except for those from which more than 50,000 people have immigrated to the U.S. in the past five years.
According to U.S. media, Saipov entered the country in 2010 on a green card he won through the DVLP.
Each year, roughly 131,000 applications are selected worldwide in the DV lottery to fill the 55,000 available green cards. Selected candidates undergo additional checks and interviews, and not all ultimately receive a green card.
In DV-2025 (lottery for visas valid from October 2024 to September 2025), 5,564 citizens of Uzbekistan were selected as winners, the highest number from any country in this draw.