President Donald Trump has suspended a green card lottery program that allocates around 50,000 immigrant visas annually.
Suspected Brown University shooter Claudio Neves Valente, a Portuguese national, was granted a diversity visa through a lottery during the first Trump administration. Now, this method of becoming a permanent resident is cut off for many — a move that will likely face legal challenges.
“That’s potentially thousands of people who are now in limbo not knowing whether their status will continue to be processed and if they’ll be allowed to come to the United States,” said Elizabeth Shaw, a local immigration attorney. The federal government didn’t return a request for information on the number of Massachusetts residents who received a green card through this specific program.
Neves Valente, 48, was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire after a days-long manhunt. He is suspected of having shot and killed two students and wounded nine others last weekend at Brown University. He allegedly shot and killed MIT professor Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline two days later.
“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,”Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on X. She said that Trump had tried to end the program back in 2017, after a DV program recipient killed eight people in a truck attack.
But local attorneys say the recent shootings are being used to perpetuate anti-immigrant sentiment.
“I think we need to honor those who are fallen and look at this as a tragedy,” said Worcester attorney David Keller of the shootings. “But the diversity program did not cause the tragedy, and suspending it would not have prevented it. This is one of those instances where I feel this administration is using fear to promote its immigration policies.”
Annelise Araujo, a Massachusetts-based immigration attorney, agrees.
“I think all of us are very aware there are mass shootings that happen often in this country,” she said. “The vast majority of times, it’s not an immigrant who has done it. I don’t know what the association would be of, ‘This person came in through diversity lottery and therefore this is why they behaved in this way.’”
The U.S. Department of State chooses between 50,000 to 55,000 people each year for the lottery program, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The issuance of the green cards happens through the Department of Homeland Security. The program was created by Congress in 1990, and mostly attracts applicants who live outside the country. Nearly 20 million applied for the most recent group of visas.
“It is a nice program because it offers another way for immigrants to have a direct pathway toward a green card,” said Keller. “So for other people that don’t have alternative means, like a family sponsor or employer sponsor or any other direct path to a green card, this still offers quite the advantage.”
The program chooses individuals at random from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card once they’ve been chosen, and are interviewed at consulates. Spouses and unmarried children under 21 can be included in the program as well.
Winners must submit a number of documents, including passport-style photos, a birth certificate, medical examinations, vaccine records and court records if there has ever been a criminal charge.
They go through extensive background checks, must have no disqualifying criminal history and pass all vetting before being admitted into the U.S. The lottery happens over a year before they’re granted entry — so those admitted into the country this year were selected in November 2023. It is unclear if the federal government is just suspending future lotteries, or if this will also impact individuals already chosen and currently being vetted.
It is also unclear if Valente was in or outside of the U.S. when he was granted the visa in 2017. He had studied physics at Brown on a student visa in 2000, and MIT professor Loureiro and Valente may have attended the same university in Portugal according to news reports.
“It is possible that someone who previously was in here on a student visa or temporary work visa then later left and applied for the diversity lottery as a means to come back to the United States and have a pass to a green card,” said Shaw.
