US authorities have suspended the Diversity Visa immigrant programme following revelations that a suspect linked to a deadly campus shooting entered the country through the scheme.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the visa programme had been paused under President Donald Trump’s direction to allow for a review, citing concerns over public safety.
“The programme has been paused to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme,” Noem said in a statement shared on social media.
US officials believe the suspect, 48-year-old Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente, was responsible for multiple violent incidents before being found dead on Thursday in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from what police believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities say Neves Valente entered the United States in 2017 through the Diversity Visa (DV1) programme and was later granted permanent residency. Officials also believe he shot and killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F. Gomes Loureiro, 47, earlier this week at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts.
The investigation further linked Neves Valente to a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where two students were killed and nine others injured when a gunman opened fire inside an engineering building during final exams on December 13.
The victims were identified as Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American freshman.
Police said a six-day multi-state manhunt led investigators to the suspect after video surveillance and public tips helped trace a rental vehicle connected to both crime scenes. The same vehicle was spotted near the MIT professor’s home two days before the Brown University attack.
When officers located Neves Valente, they found him dead alongside a satchel and two firearms. Evidence recovered from a nearby car matched materials found at the Brown University shooting scene, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed that Neves Valente had previously studied at the institution between autumn 2000 and spring 2001 while pursuing a PhD in physics, but said he had no current affiliation with the university.
Authorities noted that both Neves Valente and Loureiro had studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s, though investigators have not yet established a motive for the attacks.
The Diversity Visa programme issues up to 50,000 visas annually through a random lottery system for applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The scheme has previously faced criticism, with Noem noting that President Trump had sought to end it following the 2017 New York truck-ramming attack carried out by an Islamic State supporter who also entered the US through the programme.
Investigations into the recent shootings are ongoing as authorities continue to piece together the suspect’s movements and possible motives.