The Trump administration on Thursday ordered an immediate halt to the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program after federal officials disclosed that the suspect in last week’s deadly shooting at Brown University had obtained permanent residency through the lottery-based system.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the suspension late Thursday, saying President Donald Trump directed the move following revelations about the suspect’s immigration status. The decision comes amid an ongoing investigation into a violent rampage that left two students dead and nine others wounded on Brown’s campus in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 13.
Authorities identified the suspect as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who was later found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators believe Valente also killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor Nuno Loureiro two days after the Brown shooting.
According to Noem, Valente first entered the United States in 2000 on a student visa to pursue a Ph.D. in physics at Brown University. He later received a diversity visa in 2017, which led to his lawful permanent resident status.
In a statement posted on Twitter, Noem said the pause was ordered “to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.” She added that “In 2017, 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.”
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.
In 2017, President Trump…
— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 19, 2025
Brown University President Christina H. Paxson confirmed that Valente enrolled in the university’s physics doctoral program in 2000 but withdrew several years later.
The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program allocates up to 50,000 visas annually through a randomized lottery to applicants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. Long criticized by Trump and his allies, the program has been a recurring target in broader debates over immigration security and vetting.
Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez announced Valente’s death Thursday, assuring residents that the threat had passed. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston echoed that assessment, stating: “There’s no longer a threat to the public.”
Legal experts cautioned that the administration’s action could face challenges, noting that the diversity visa lottery is authorized by federal statute and may require congressional involvement to permanently suspend or eliminate.
Meanwhile, investigators continue to probe Valente’s motives, with authorities linking him to both shootings through ballistic matches, surveillance footage, and rental records, as federal and state agencies work to reconstruct the sequence of events that culminated in the attacks.
