Trump suspends US green card lottery in wake of Brown University and MIT shootings via Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem who has paused high-profile visa program, said shooting suspect Claudio Neves Valente gained green card in 2017.
According to Oscar Perez, the police chief in Providence, Rhode Island, the suspect was found dead on Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Valente is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem said on X. Suspect Valente, a Portuguese national, had initially entered the US on a student visa in 2000 and later became a permanent resident in 2017.
The move has brought about a heated debate online across the globe, here in Kenya, netizens were not left behind:
One Instagram user @davy_wanaina commented, “Trump really believes he’s the guy and honestly most Americans agree”, @otiso_kenya posted “uyu amenimaliza, hii mwaka hadi nilikuwa nimehongana”, @wanjohicarolyne lamented “hii mwaka si yangu”
Neves Valente 48, had studied at Brown on a student visa from 2000, based on an affidavit from a Providence police detective.
The diversity visa program makes up to around 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are considered to have little representation in the United States, mostly from Africa.
The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Around 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 being selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, it is required that they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States, Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are then invited to apply for a green card, get interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.