Noem Halts Visa Lottery After Brown University Shooting Suspect Identified

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced late Thursday that the Trump administration is moving to suspend the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program—commonly known as the “visa lottery”—after federal officials confirmed that the suspect behind the Brown University mass shooting and the murder of an MIT professor entered the United States through the program.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote on X. “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.”

According to Noem, the suspect has been identified as Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who obtained lawful permanent resident status in 2017 through the diversity visa lottery.

Federal authorities say Valente carried out a deadly rampage on December 13, opening fire inside a classroom at Brown University, killing two students and wounding nine others. Just two days later, investigators believe he deliberately targeted and murdered MIT plasma physicist Nuno Loureiro at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.

After a multi-state manhunt, Valente was found dead by apparent suicide Thursday night inside a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire.

“This tragedy underscores the national security risks of random immigration lotteries,” Noem said.

The Diversity Visa Program was established by Congress in 1990 and issues up to 50,000 green cards annually through a random lottery system to applicants from countries with relatively low rates of immigration to the United States. While applicants are required to have a high school education or qualifying work experience and pass background checks, critics have long argued the program lacks meaningful merit-based safeguards.

President Donald J. Trump, now serving his second term as President of the United States, has been one of the program’s most vocal opponents. He has repeatedly condemned the lottery as a “national security disaster” that allows individuals to enter the country “without regard for merit.”

During his first term, President Trump pushed to eliminate the program following the 2017 New York City terror attack, when an Uzbek national who entered the U.S. through the diversity lottery killed eight people by ramming a truck into pedestrians.

Noem said Thursday that those warnings have now been tragically validated.

“President Trump tried to end this program years ago,” she said. “He was right then, and he’s right now.”

Legal questions remain about the scope of the Department of Homeland Security’s authority, as most diversity visas are administered by the State Department rather than DHS. However, a DHS official confirmed that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—which processes diversity visa cases for applicants already inside the country—is reviewing “all active diversity visa adjudications,” and that the pause will remain in place “until further notice.”

New details about Valente’s background have also raised troubling concerns. According to a police affidavit, he first entered the United States in 2000 on a student visa to attend Brown University, but withdrew in 2003. Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed Thursday that Valente “was enrolled for one semester in 2000–2001.”

Before coming to the U.S., Valente studied physics in Portugal at the Instituto Superior Técnico, where officials confirmed he overlapped with Loureiro. That connection has fueled investigators’ belief that the MIT professor was specifically targeted.

“My understanding is that they did know each other,” said Leah Foley, U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts.

Authorities say Valente carried out the Brown University attack inside the Barus & Holley engineering building during a final exam review session. Witnesses reported that he entered from the rear of Tanner Auditorium and began firing toward the front of the lecture hall. Police later recovered numerous 9mm shell casings from the scene.

The killing of Professor Loureiro followed two days later, with federal investigators concluding the act was premeditated.

The case has reignited a national debate over the diversity visa lottery, with critics arguing that random immigration programs pose unnecessary and avoidable risks to public safety.

Noem made clear that the administration views this pause as only the beginning.

“We are going to put American safety and common sense first,” she said. “That starts with ending a system that lets dangerous individuals slip through the cracks.”