Trump admin suspends diversity visa lottery program used by Brown University gunman to enter US

In the wake of the Brown University gunman being identified and found dead after a days-long manhunt, President Donald Trump has directed a pause in the visa program that allowed the gunman to come to the United States.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote late Thursday after authorities announced that the gunman had been found deceased and was identified as 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, "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."

"In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people. 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," she added.

According to an affidavit, Valente was admitted into the US on August 23, 2000, as an F-1 student to attend Brown University, where he was enrolled in a PhD program for physics between the fall 2000 and spring 2001 semesters. He departed the US on December 22, 2000, and returned to the US on January 25, 2001. Valente was issued a diversity immigrant visa on May 10, 2017. Later that year, on September 14, 2017, he was granted lawful permanent resident status. It is currently unclear where Valente was between taking a leave of absence from Brown in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.

Per the New York Post, the DV1 program was authorized by the Immigration Act of 1990 and provides up to 50,000 visas per year, prioritizing applicants from countries from which, during the prior five years, had low levels of emigration to the US. In the 2025 lottery for the visas, nearly 20 million people applied. Over 131,000 winners and their spouses were selected. Of those selected, Portuguese nationals received 38 visas.

Under the first Trump term, he called for an end to the program after the 2017 attack in Lower Manhattan carried out by Uzbekistan national Sayfullo Saipov, in which he drove a truck down a crowded Hudson River bike path, killing eight and injuring 11.

Valente was found dead at a Salem, New Hampshire, storage facility on Thursday evening after a multi-day manhunt that spread across three New England states. Authorities said in a Thursday night press conference that they are "100 percent confident that this is our target." A gunman opened fire on Saturday in an engineering building on Brown's Providence, Rhode Island campus, killing two and injuring nine others. The suspect fled campus and was on the run for days. Authorities said that it was a Reddit tip was what set in motion identifying the suspect. The rental car used by the suspect was found, and a rental agreement with Valente's name was obtained.

Claudio Manuel Neves Valente Affidavit by Hannah Nightingale