Authorities have identified the shooter in the Brown University shooting that left two people dead and nine injured as 48-year-old Portuguese national Claudio Neves-Valente.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated Neves-Valente entered the United States through a Diversity Visa issued to him in 2017. In response to the incident, President Trump has suspended all Diversity Visa applications.
The shooter, who was found dead on Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, previously entered the U.S. on a student visa in 2000 and became a permanent resident in 2017, according to Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez. Noem declared: “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.”
The Diversity Visa program allocates up to 50,000 green cards annually through a lottery for nationals from underrepresented countries. Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 lottery, with over 131,000 selected when including spouses. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots in the program.
President Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery and previously sought to end it following a 2017 attack in New York City by an ISIS-linked individual who entered under the program and killed eight people. At Trump’s direction, Noem ordered USCIS to immediately pause the DV1 program to prevent further harm.