Trump suspends Green Card lottery

By Newsflash Writer

President Donald Trump has halted the US green card lottery programme following a deadly mass shooting at Brown University last week, which claimed the lives of two students.

The suspect, a Portuguese national found dead on Thursday, had entered the United States through the diversity visa lottery (DV1) in 2017 and was granted permanent residency.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the programme was paused under Trump’s instructions to “ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme.” US officials also reported that the 48-year-old suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, is believed to have killed Portuguese Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro earlier this week.

Investigation links suspect to MIT killing

The DV1 scheme provides up to 50,000 visas annually through a random selection process for applicants from countries with low US immigration rates. Writing on social media, Noem noted that Trump had previously “fought to end” the programme in 2017 after eight people were killed in a truck-ramming attack in New York City. Uzbekistan national Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic State supporter now serving multiple life sentences for that attack, had also entered the US via the DV1 scheme, according to Noem.

Her comments came shortly after Neves Valente was discovered dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, in what police believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Investigators said surveillance footage and public tips led them to a car rental location where the suspect’s identity was confirmed following a six-day multi-state manhunt. He was found with a satchel and two firearms, and evidence in a nearby vehicle linked him to the Brown University shooting, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.

Campus shooting and suspect background

Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed that Neves Valente had attended the Ivy League school from autumn 2000 to the following spring, pursuing a PhD in physics, though he had “no current active affiliation” with the university. Authorities said they believe he shot and killed MIT professor Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, 47, at his Brookline home, about 50 miles from Providence. Both men had studied at the same Portuguese university in the late 1990s.

Officials linked the two incidents after identifying the suspect’s car via CCTV footage and a witness at Brown University. The same vehicle was later spotted near the professor’s home two days after the campus attack. Authorities have not disclosed a motive for either shooting. The Brown University attack on December 13 left two students dead and nine others injured during final exams. The victims were identified as Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American freshman.