Trump Admin Immediately Halts Visa Program That Allowed Brown and MIT Suspect Into the Country

A visa program under which the man authorities believe killed two Brown University students and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor entered the country has been paused, according to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, was found dead in storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, on Thursday, according to The New York Times.

Police believe that on Saturday, the native of Portugal shot and killed two students in an auditorium at Brown, located in Providence, Rhode Island.

On Tuesday, it’s also believed he murdered MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro at the professor’s Brookline, Massachusetts, home.

“The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” Noem wrote on X.

“In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 program, and murdered eight people.”

The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.

In 2017, President Trump…

— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 19, 2025

“At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program,” she wrote.

The visa program conducts a lottery for 50,000 visas a year and targets people from nations with low immigration rates to the United States. The visa lottery has several million people competing for the visas, according to CBS.

The diversity visa program requires applicants to have a high school education or two years of work experience and are supposed to be vetted and interviewed.

Neves Valente, 48, had studied at Brown after entering the U.S. on a student visa in 2000, according to The New York Times.

“Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown as a graduate student from Fall 2000 to Spring 2001, but he has no active affiliation with Brown and has not been affiliated with Brown since 2003,” Brown President Christina Paxson said, according to Fox News.

“He was not a current student, was not an employee and did not receive a degree from the University, attending for only three semesters as a graduate student until taking a leave in 2001 and formally withdrawing effective July 31, 2003.”

Alleged Brown University shooter has been identified as Claudio Neves Valente from Portugal.

– also kiIIed MIT professor
– not a US citizen
– found dead by suicide in a warehouse in NH
– attended Brown
– attended the same university in Portugal as the MIT professor

This seems… pic.twitter.com/qsiC8qMALS

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 19, 2025

Neves Valente was a former classmate of the slain MIT professor, according to The New York Times.

The two men were both students at the Instituto Superior Técnico from 1995 to 2000.  Loureiro graduated with a degree in physics from the college in 2000, the Times reported.

Investigators have not released what they believe could have been the motive for the shootings.

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