“Green Card Lottery Suspended After Brown Tragedy Rocks U.S.”
Trump halts U.S. green card lottery after Brown University shooting kills 2. Officials cite public safety and risk from the diversity visa program.
President Donald Trump has suspended the US Green Card lottery scheme following a mass shooting at Brown University last week that left two people dead.
The suspect, a Portuguese man who was found dead on Thursday, had entered the country in 2017 through the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV1) and was granted a Green Card.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said she had halted the visa scheme at Trump's direction to "ensure that no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program."
US officials said they believe the 48-year-old suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, also killed Nuno Loureiro, a Portuguese Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, earlier this week.
The program provides 50,000 visas annually through a random selection process to individuals from countries with low immigration rates to the US.
Writing on social media, Nielsen said Trump had "fought to end" the scheme in 2017 after a truck-ramming attack in New York City killed eight people.
According to Nielsen, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek national and supporter of the Islamic State who is serving multiple life sentences for the attack, had entered the US through the DV1 scheme.
Her comments came just hours after Valente was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from what police believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Police said that based on video evidence and tips from the public, investigators tracked down a car rental location where they obtained the suspect's name and, after a six-day, multi-state search, matched it to their suspect.
He was found dead with a bag and two weapons. According to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, evidence found in a nearby car matched the scene of a shooting at Brown University in Providence.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Valente was enrolled at the Ivy League school from the fall of 2000 to the following spring, pursuing a PhD in physics.
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She said he had "no current active affiliation" with Brown.
Authorities said they believe Valente shot and killed MIT Professor Nuno F. Gomes Loureiro, 47, at his home in Brookline on Monday, about 50 miles (80 km) from Providence. Police said the two men had attended the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s.
Authorities said the cases were linked when the suspect's vehicle was identified through CCTV footage and a witness at Brown University.
The same car was seen near the scene of the professor's shooting, which occurred just two days later.
Authorities have not provided any information about a possible motive behind the two attacks.
On December 13, a gunman entered Brown University's engineering building and opened fire during final exams, killing two students and injuring nine others.
They were identified as Ella Cook, 19, a sophomore from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umarzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American who had just begun his studies at the university.
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