US Suspends Green Card Lottery Following Brown University Shooting

The United States has suspended its Green Card lottery programme following a deadly shooting at Brown University that left two students dead. President Donald Trump directed the halt of the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) programme after authorities identified the suspect, a Portuguese National, as having entered the Country through the scheme.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the suspect “should never have been allowed in our Country” and confirmed the suspension aims to prevent further harm from the programme.

US officials identified the suspect as 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, who was found dead on Thursday in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.

Police said evidence suggests Valente died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Valente is believed to have also killed Portuguese Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor Nuno Loureiro earlier this week.

Police investigations involved video evidence and public tips that led authorities to a car rental location where Valente’s name was confirmed. At the storage facility, investigators found Valente with a satchel and two firearms.

A car nearby was linked to the Brown University shooting in Providence, Rhode Island, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Valente had previously attended Brown University from autumn 2000 to spring 2001 as a Physics PhD student, but Brown officials said he had “no current active affiliation” with the school.

The suspect and MIT professor Loureiro both studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s. Authorities connected the cases after identifying Valente’s vehicle at both crime scenes.

The Brown University shooting on December 13 occurred during final exams in the engineering building. Two students were killed: Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American freshman.

Nine other students were injured. Authorities have not released a motive for either attack.

The Diversity Visa lottery programme, which grants up to 50,000 visas annually to applicants from Countries with low US immigration rates, has previously faced criticism.

Secretary Noem highlighted that President Trump had sought to end the scheme in 2017 following a truck-ramming attack in New York City that killed eight people. That attacker, an Uzbek National, had also entered the country through the DV programme.

Noem said the suspension will remain in effect while officials review the programme to prevent further tragedies.