Trump suspends US green card lottery

The United States government has announced the suspension of its green card lottery programme following revelations that the man accused of carrying out deadly shootings at Brown University and killing a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entered the country through the scheme.

The decision was disclosed on Thursday by the administration of President Donald Trump.

The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, is accused of storming a building at Brown University on Saturday and opening fire on students, killing two people and injuring nine others. Authorities say he later shot and killed an MIT professor two days after the campus attack.

US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a social media post on Thursday that Neves Valente “entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card.”

The diversity visa lottery programme issues up to 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to individuals “from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States,” according to the US State Department.

Describing the suspect as a “heinous individual,” Noem said he “should never have been allowed in our country.”

“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program,” she said.

During Trump’s first term in office in 2017, the president had pledged to clamp down on immigration, including ending the green card lottery, following a deadly terrorist attack in New York.

Referencing that incident, Noem wrote: “President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people.”

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, US attorney Leah Foley said Neves Valente studied at Brown University “on an F1 (student) visa around 2000 to 2021” and that “he eventually obtained legal permanent resident status.” She did not provide further details.

Foley also disclosed that Neves Valente had attended the “same academic program… in Portugal between 1995 and 2000” as the MIT professor, Nuno Loureiro, who was shot dead at his home in Brookline, within the Boston metropolitan area.

Authorities said there was no immediate indication of the motive behind the shootings, which sent shockwaves through the elite New England campuses.

Neves Valente’s body was later found at a storage facility in New Hampshire, along with two firearms. Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez said on Thursday that the suspect died by suicide after a days-long manhunt and is believed to have acted alone.

The two students killed at Brown University were identified as Ella Cook, vice president of the university’s Republican Party association, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, originally from Uzbekistan, who had aspired to become a neurosurgeon.

University president Christina Paxson said in a statement on Thursday that six of the wounded victims remained hospitalised in stable condition, while three others had been discharged.

Investigators had earlier released images of a person of interest and another individual seen nearby as they intensified efforts to track the suspect. Officials also expressed frustration over the prolonged manhunt.

Breakthroughs in the investigation came after authorities analysed financial records and surveillance footage from both crime scenes.

“The groundwork that started in the city of Providence… led us to that connection,” Perez said.

In Boston, Foley said Neves Valente had been “sophisticated in hiding his tracks.” She explained that he had switched licence plates on a rental vehicle and used a phone that proved difficult for investigators to trace.

Police initially detained another man in connection with the shooting but later released him.

Brown University has since faced scrutiny, including criticism from Trump, over its security measures after it emerged that none of the institution’s 1,200 security cameras were linked to police surveillance systems.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States this year, defined as incidents in which four or more people are shot. Efforts to tighten gun control laws continue to face political deadlock.

“Nothing can fully bring closure to the lives that have been shattered by last weekend’s gun violence,” Paxson said.

“Now, however, our community has the opportunity to move forward and begin a path of repair, recovery and healing.”