President Donald Trump has taken decisive action by suspending the visa lottery program, a move prompted by the recent tragic events involving a suspect who entered the United States through this very system.
The individual in question is accused of the brutal killings of two Brown University students and an MIT professor.
As reported by Sean Hannity, the suspension follows confirmation from authorities that the suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, gained entry into the U.S. via the Diversity Immigrant (DV1) Visa program. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem expressed her dismay, stating, This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.
She further announced, At President Trumps direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.
Neves Valente, a 48-year-old from Portugal, was granted a DV1 visa in 2017 and subsequently obtained a green card. His life ended in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, where he was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities identified him as the main suspect in the December 13 mass shooting at Brown University, which claimed the lives of students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and injured nine others. Additionally, he was linked to the December 15 murder of MIT nuclear science professor Nuno Loureiro.
Records reveal that Neves Valente was once a graduate physics student at Brown University, having enrolled during the 200001 academic year. However, he took a leave of absence in April and officially withdrew in 2003. The details of his whereabouts and activities in the years leading up to the attacks remain unclear, with his last known residence being in Miami, Florida.
The DV1 visa program, established under the Immigration Act of 1990, is designed to issue up to 50,000 visas annually through a lottery system, prioritizing applicants from countries with historically low immigration rates to the United States. The program's scale is significant, with nearly 20 million applicants for the 2025 visa lottery and over 131,000 winners and their spouses selected. Among these, 38 slots were allocated to Portuguese nationals.
This suspension of the visa lottery program underscores the need for a thorough reevaluation of immigration policies to safeguard American citizens while maintaining the nation's commitment to diversity and opportunity.
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