The administration of US President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery programme, which allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that at Trump's direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.
"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," she said.
"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."
Noem did not provide procedural details about how long the pause will last or what mechanism the DHS is invoking.
50,000 green cards per year
Noem's announcement came after a five-day manhunt that led authorities to 48-year-old Portuguese national Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente, who authorities suspect killed two students and wounded nine others in a mass shooting at Brown University on Saturday, before allegedly murdering MIT Professor Nuno Loureiro two days later in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Neves-Valente was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit on Thursday, alongside firearms and evidence linking him to the attacks.
The diversity visa programme makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are underrepresented in the United States, many of them in Africa.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected, including spouses.
After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
The DV-1 program was created by Congress, and any permanent change or repeal would require legislative action.
