The Brown University shooting sent shockwaves across the country.
Two students dead, nine wounded, and an MIT professor murdered in cold blood.
And Kristi Noem just shut down one program that let a mass shooter into America.
Trump Administration Takes Swift Action After Deadly Rampage
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem dropped the hammer on a controversial immigration program that critics have been warning about for decades.
The suspect in the Brown University massacre — Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national — entered the United States through the Diversity Visa Lottery Program in 2017 and received a green card.¹
Now that program is dead in the water.
"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," Noem declared on X.²
At President Donald Trump's direction, she ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to immediately pause the diversity visa lottery — a program that hands out 50,000 immigrant visas each year through random selection.³
Valente was reportedly found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a New Hampshire storage unit after a five-day manhunt.
But the damage was done.
He allegedly killed two Brown University students during the shooting in the physics building where he once studied two decades ago.
Then officials say he murdered MIT professor Nuno Loureiro, a nuclear fusion scientist, at his Brookline, Massachusetts home.
Authorities believe Valente and Loureiro attended the same university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000.⁴
The killing spree exposed the glaring security risks of allowing immigration through a literal lottery system.
Trump Has Been Warning About This Program For Years
Trump fought to end the diversity visa lottery during his first term after an ISIS terrorist who entered through the same program murdered eight people in a 2017 truck-ramming attack in New York City.⁵
Congress created the lottery in the 1990s to promote immigration from countries with historically low rates of migration to the United States.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected including spouses and dependents.⁶
Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Sure, lottery winners get vetted and interviewed before they get green cards.
That's supposed to make everyone feel better about a program that literally picks immigrants out of a hat.
Think about that for a second – we're deciding who gets to live in America permanently based on random chance instead of what they can contribute to the country.
Valente initially entered the United States on a student visa in 2000 to attend Brown's physics graduate program.
He took a leave of absence in spring 2001 and formally withdrew in 2003.⁷
Sixteen years later, he won the diversity lottery and returned as a permanent resident.
Investigators recovered two 9mm Glocks — one equipped with a green laser device — along with high-capacity magazines and a bulletproof vest from storage units Valente rented in Salem, New Hampshire.⁸
Security camera footage captured the rental car he used traveling near Brown's campus repeatedly between December 1 and December 12.⁹
Legal Authority Over Program Remains Murky
The diversity visa program operates primarily under State Department oversight, with the Department of Homeland Security handling a smaller portion of cases for applicants already inside the United States.
Legal experts questioned what authority Noem has to broadly halt a program established by federal law.
Trump previously suspended the diversity lottery in 2020 as part of COVID-19 economic restrictions.
Joe Biden reversed that policy in 2021.
The back-and-forth underscores exactly why Congress should permanently replace the lottery with a merit-based system that prioritizes America's economic and security interests.
But Trump isn't waiting for Congress to act.
The suspension marks the latest escalation in his administration's immigration crackdown following a similar response after an Afghan national shot two National Guard members last month.
The administration imposed sweeping restrictions on immigration from Afghanistan and 18 other countries after that attack.
Supporters of the diversity lottery claim it promotes goodwill abroad and helps the economy.
They note that winners undergo the same background checks and vetting as other green card applicants.
Those arguments ring hollow when Americans keep learning after tragedies that the perpetrators entered through a system that leaves national security decisions to random chance.
The Brown University shooting just proved once again that the diversity visa lottery poses an unacceptable risk to American lives.
¹ Kristi Noem, "The Brown University shooter," X, December 19, 2025.
² Ibid.
³ "Diversity Visa Program," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 2025.
⁴ Leah B. Foley, U.S. Attorney press conference, Boston, December 19, 2025.
⁵ Kristi Noem, X, December 19, 2025.
⁶ "2025 Diversity Visa Lottery Statistics," U.S. State Department, 2025.
⁷ Christina H. Paxson, Brown University President statement, December 19, 2025.
⁸ FBI Boston field office, press conference, December 19, 2025.
⁹ Providence Police Department affidavit, December 19, 2025.
