President Donald Trump has suspended the US green card lottery scheme in the wake of a mass shooting at Brown University last week in which two people were killed.
The suspect, a Portuguese man who was found dead on Thursday, entered the country through the diversity lottery immigrant visa programme (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated she has paused the visa scheme under Trump's directive to ensure no more Americans are harmed by what she termed a 'disastrous programme.'
US officials indicated that the suspect, 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, also killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro earlier in the week.
The DV1 programme provides up to 50,000 visas annually through a random selection process for entries from countries with low immigration rates to the US. In her remarks, Noem drew parallels to previous incidents, recalling how Trump previously sought to end the scheme following a deadly truck-ramming attack in New York City in 2017.
Neves Valente was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound shortly after being identified as a suspect in both shootings.
The two victims of the Brown University shooting, identified as Ella Cook, 19, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, were killed when the suspect opened fire during final exams. The investigation continues to explore the motives behind these tragic incidents.
