Azernews.Az

By Alimat Aliyeva

The United States has suspended the green card lottery program for immigration visas following a shooting at Brown University, Azernews reports.

This was announced by U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Christie Noem.

“Following the instructions of President Donald Trump, I am immediately directing U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to suspend the DV-1 green card program to ensure that no more Americans are put at risk by this disastrous program,” she wrote on Friday on the social media platform X.

According to Noem, Neves Valente, a Portuguese man suspected of carrying out the Brown University shooting and killing Nuno Loureiro, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), entered the United States in 2017 under the DV-1 immigration visa program and received permanent residency. “This monstrous individual should never have been allowed to enter our country,” Noem emphasized.

CNN reports that the Brown University shooting marked the 75th gun-related incident at U.S. educational institutions in 2025. Over the past year, a total of 391 shootings have occurred in public places across the country.

The Associated Press notes that nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 green card lottery, with more than 131,000 applicants selected, including the spouses of the winners. The suspension of the program has sparked debate among immigration experts, who warn that halting the lottery could affect thousands of legitimate applicants who had no connection to the incident, highlighting the complex balance between public safety and immigration policy.