Trump suspended the green card lottery program

USA President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program, AP News writes.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that at Trump’s direction she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.

The decision was prompted by the shooting at Brown University. The suspect came to the United States in 2017 due to this program.

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

Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the United States, many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.

Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners.

After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States.