Trump admin suspends US green card lottery

WASHINGTON, Dec 19 (AFP): US homeland security chief Kristi Noem suspended a green card lottery on Thursday, saying it was used by the suspect in a mass shooting at Brown University.

Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, is accused of bursting into a building at the Ivy League school on Dec 13 and opening fire on students sitting exams, killing two and wounding nine. He is also accused of killing a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology two days later.

Noem wrote on social media that Neves Valente "entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card."

The US green card lottery grants up to 55,000 permanent resident visas annually to people "from countries with low rates of immigration to the US."