Kristi Noem Says Trump Is Suspending the U.S. Green Card Lottery

Kristi Noem said Donald Trump has directed her to pause the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program -- also known as the green card lottery -- on her X account on Thursday evening.

The Department of Homeland Security Secretary wrote Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who police say killed two and wounded nine others in a campus shooting at Brown University last weekend, entered the United States from Portugal through the green card lottery.

Police say Valente also killed MIT professor Nuno Loureiro before taking his own life days later. The two men attended the same university in Portugal.

Noem described Valente as a "heinous individual" and wrote he never should have been granted entry to the United States.

The diversity lottery immigrant visa program makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available each year, according to the USCIS website. Visas are issued randomly to individuals from countries with lower rates of immigration to the United States.

Noem cited the perpetrator of a 2017 truck-ramming attack in New York City that killed eight people as prompting Trump's first-term attempt at ending the program.