Noem Halts Visa Lottery After Brown University Shooter Enters US Through Program

The tragic Brown University shooting has now sparked a major national security response after it was revealed that the suspected killer, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, entered the United States through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. Following the revelation, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced an immediate pause on the program, citing direct orders from President Donald Trump.

"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," Noem stated in a post on X.

Valente, a Portuguese national, is accused of carrying out a deadly shooting at Brown University and murdering an M.I.T. professor. Authorities say he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound and was later identified as the primary suspect in both crimes.

What’s more shocking is how he entered the U.S. through the diversity visa lottery system in 2017. The program, often slammed by conservatives, offers up to 55,000 green cards annually to nationals from countries with low immigration levels to the U.S. not based on merit, skill, or security risk.

Noem didn’t mince words. “At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”

This isn't the first time the Diversity Visa Program has been tied to tragedy. In 2017, Sayfullo Saipov, a radical Islamic terrorist from Uzbekistan, used the same program to enter the U.S. before murdering eight people in a horrific truck attack in New York City. Trump called for the program’s elimination then and now, with a second deadly incident linked to DV1, the message is clear: enough is enough.

Here’s what we know:

• Claudio Valente entered the U.S. via the DV1 visa lottery and was granted a green card.

• He was a former Brown graduate student, enrolled in a physics PhD program from 2000 to 2001, but formally withdrew in 2003.

• Despite no current affiliation with the university, Valente returned to the campus this year, where the tragedy unfolded.

• Officials now confirm Valente was also the suspect in a separate murder of an M.I.T. professor, intensifying the national spotlight on the visa system that allowed him in.

As President Trump’s immigration policies continue to be vindicated, this latest case will undoubtedly reignite debate over merit-based immigration versus random lottery systems. And it should.

Let’s be clear: no other country in the world runs a blind, random lottery to hand out permanent residency. The diversity visa program is a relic of failed liberal policies that put ideology above safety. Instead of prioritizing national interest, it prioritizes quotas, “equity,” and feel-good globalism.

And while Democrats may rush to defend the program in the name of “diversity,” the cost is becoming too high to ignore. Americans are paying with their safety, and in this case with their lives.

President Trump was right in 2017, and he’s right now: immigration must be based on merit, security, and loyalty to the United States not on lottery luck.

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