WASHINGTON — The Portuguese suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings came to the United States through a little-known pathway called the diversity immigrant visa.
That program makes up to 50,000 green cards available every year by lottery to people from countries that weren't well represented in the numbers of immigrant admissions to the U.S. in recent years. The visas are given out in a lottery system, and for people hoping to come to the U.S. who have no other way in, it is akin to winning big.
On Thursday night, once the suspect's identity became clear, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X that she was pausing the program and that the alleged shooter should have never been able to come to the U.S.
The suspension is the latest step by the Trump administration to restrict legal immigration following acts of violence and reexamine foreigners already in the U.S.
The administration has repeatedly pointed to the difficulties of vetting those people as a reason for the restrictions. But experts say immigrants go through rigorous screening before they are allowed to enter the U.S. Critics say the measures to curtail legal immigration are a form of collective punishment.
A visa program to broaden the countries that get access to green cards
The diversity visa was created by Congress in 1990 as a way to give people from countries that were underrepresented in the U.S. a chance to come.
The American Immigration Council wrote in a 2017 report that the U.S. immigration system tends to favor family connections or employers when it comes to determining who can qualify for visas.
“People who do not have U.S.-based eligible family members or employers able to sponsor their visas have very few opportunities for permanent, legal immigration to the United States — even if they have other promising attributes that could benefit the country,” the organization wrote.
Each year, the federal government looks at who's entered the country in the past five years and where they're from. Then the government sets aside visas for people from underrepresented regions or countries.
This year, 35,000 slots went to people from Africa, 15,000 to Asia, and 8,500 to Europeans.
Even if you win the diversity lottery, that's not a guarantee that you get to come to the U.S. Applicants and their families still have to apply and pass vetting by the U.S. government.
And like any lottery, it's extremely difficult to win. The State Department said last year nearly 21 million people applied during the 37-day application period. About 130,000 were chosen — that includes the main person applying and their family members.
The diversity visa program was already on the administration's radar
Joseph Edlow, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all immigration-related benefits such as green cards, said in September that he wanted to see the diversity visa “gone.”
In a later interview with The Associated Press, Edlow said he supports a merit-based immigration system that's designed to help the U.S. economy and that he didn't think the diversity lottery fit into that.
“I’ve never really seen at this point the efficacy and the utility to continue the diversity visa. But Congress has to determine what makes sense for them moving forward,” he said.
It was not immediately clear whether Congress has any say in pausing the program, although experts say it likely would in the case of a full suspension.
Trump also attacked the program during his first term, at one point saying it brings in "the worst of the worst."
During a news conference on Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested the aim of the suspension was to take another look at the vetting.
“The reason why you suspend this program is not because you argue everybody who came in under that visa is a bad person and is going to shoot a place up,” Rubio said. “It’s because you want to determine whether there’s something in the vetting of that program that’s insufficient.” He did not address the specific case of the Brown shooting suspect.
Critics have attacked this step and others that the Trump administration has taken, limiting immigration from certain countries as collective punishment.
“This is the latest instance of the administration leveraging an isolated evil action to advance its goal of dramatically reducing legal immigration," said Myal Greene, head of World Relief, an aid group that also works to resettle refugees in the U.S.
Violence involving immigrants has prompted restrictions before
The pausing of the diversity visa program is the latest step by the Trump administration to restrict immigration and travel from countries or regions it deems problematic following national security events in the U.S.
After the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. by a suspect who is an Afghan national, the Trump administration announced that it was suspending all asylum decisions going through USCIS as well as all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals.
The agency also tightened restrictions on people from 19 countries the administration considers “high-risk,” including Afghanistan, making it harder for them to apply for immigration benefits such as green cards or extending stays in the U.S.
When Trump announced a travel ban in June on certain countries he also tied the new ban to an attack in Boulder, Colorado, saying it underscored the dangers posed by some visitors who overstay visas. The suspect in the attack was from Egypt, which was not on Trump's restricted list.
Earlier this week, the administration expanded that travel ban to include an additional 20 countries. And the refugee program that once let in tens of thousands of people a year has been largely dismantled.
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