President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the suspension of the Green Card lottery programme following the revelation that the Brown University shooter entered the U.S. through it.
The shooter killed two students and nine other people.
“The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday.
Citing Mr Trump’s efforts to end the programme after the 2017 New York City truck-ramming attack carried out by an ISIS terrorist who entered the United States through the DV1 programme and killed eight people, Ms Noem said, “At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately instructing USCIS to pause the DV1 programme to ensure that no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme.”
According to the U.S. government, about 55,000 people enter the U.S. through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program each year.
The suspected shooter was found dead on Thursday in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire.
After the shooting of two National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C, in November, the U.S. announced it would review every Green Card holder from targeted countries for possible revocation of their status as lawful permanent residents in the United States.
