Trump administration moves to pause U.S. diversity visa lottery

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available annually to applicants from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the United States. Winners are selected at random through a lottery system, with tens of millions applying each year.

Noem said the suspected shooter, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, entered the U.S. through the program and later received permanent resident status. Authorities say Neves Valente was responsible for a weekend shooting at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, as well as the fatal shooting of an MIT professor two days later. He was found dead in New Hampshire in an apparent suicide, ending a multi-day manhunt.

Launched in the 1990s, the program requires applicants to have at least a high school education or two years of qualified work experience, as well as to pass background checks and interviews.

The program was created by Congress, and it remains unclear under what legal mechanism the Department of Homeland Security can unilaterally pause it. Most diversity visas are processed by the State Department, while USCIS oversees a limited number of cases involving applicants already in the U.S.

President Donald Trump has long criticized the lottery, arguing it poses security risks and lacks merit-based criteria. The program was suspended in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and later reinstated in 2021 under President Joe Biden.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Australia was left in shock after a mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach killed at least 15 people and injured 40 others, including two police officers and a child. Authorities have classified the attack as a terrorist incident.