The Secretary of Homeland Security of the United States, Kristi Noem, ordered this Thursday (18) the suspension of a program that grants residency visas, or “green cards”, to countries with low migration by lottery, after saying that the system was used by the suspect in the shooting at Brown University.
“Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity visa lottery program in 2017 and received a green card,” Noem said on social media about the Portuguese citizen.
“Following President Trump’s instructions, I am immediately ordering USCIS (Citizenship and Immigration Services) to suspend the program to ensure that no American is further harmed by this disastrous program,” he added.
Valente, accused of murdering two Brown University students and also suspected of murdering a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, was found dead in a New Hampshire state warehouse, next to two firearms.
He “killed himself,” said Oscar Perez, chief of the police department in Providence, the Rhode Island city home to the famous university where he opened fire last weekend.
The migration lottery system, officially called the Diversity Visa Program, was established in 1990 and allows the issuance of residence permits to almost 50,000 people per year, provided they meet eligibility criteria.
To obtain a visa, you must pass an exam and an interview. Each year, millions of people from countries with low rates of migration to the United States enter the drawing.
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