Diversity Visa Lottery in US Suspended by Trump

US Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem said late on Thursday that President Donald Trump ordered her to pause the diversity visa lottery, which was used by the suspect in the Brown University shooting.

"At President Trump's direction, I am immediately directing USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program," Noem said.

Noem said the shooting suspect entered the United States in 2017, using the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1).

The suspect, a 48-year-old Portuguese man who two decades earlier was a Brown University student, later obtained a green card under the same program.

"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," Noem said.

Last week, two people were killed and nine others were wounded in a mass shooting at Brown University.

Authorities on Thursday found the suspect dead of self-inflicted wounds at a storage facility in the state of New Hampshire and are investigating the case.

Investigators believe the man was also responsible for the killing of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro, who was fatally shot in Boston on Monday, US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley said.