President Donald Trump has ordered the suspension of the United States green card lottery programme, citing security concerns following recent shootings at two American universities.
Kristi Noem, the US secretary of homeland security, announced the directive during a news briefing on Friday, saying the programme had been exploited by individuals who later posed security threats.
According to Noem, the suspect linked to shootings at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entered the United States through the Diversity Visa Immigrant Programme, commonly known as the green card lottery.
The programme grants up to 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to immigrants selected through a random lottery system. In 2025 alone, nearly 20 million people applied, with about 131,000 selected to proceed to the vetting stage.
Trump has long criticised the initiative, arguing that it undermines national security and prioritises chance over merit-based immigration.
Oscar Perez, police chief of Providence, Rhode Island, said the shooting suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, first entered the US on a student visa in 2000 before obtaining permanent residency in 2017.
Perez added that Valente was found dead on Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed into our country,” Noem wrote on X, defending the administration’s decision to halt the programme.
The suspension marks the latest instance in which the Trump administration has linked violent incidents to immigration policy changes.
In November, following a deadly attack on National Guard members by an Afghan national, the administration announced tighter immigration restrictions on Afghanistan and several other countries.
Despite the administration’s claims, data from the 2025 lottery shows that Portuguese nationals secured only 38 slots in the programme.
Winners of the diversity visa lottery are required to undergo background checks, attend consular interviews, and meet the same eligibility requirements as other green card applicants before entry into the United States.
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