A Republican senator wants to end the US Diversity Visa Lottery because it is about national security, not race, as the Trump administration moves to suspend the programme following a deadly shooting involving a foreign national.Speaking on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, Senator Markwayne Mullin defended the decision to pause the lottery system, which is known as the Green Card Lottery. He said the programme should be scrapped altogether.“This DEI lottery system for immigration should be ended,” Mullin said in an interview with host Laura Ingraham. He said the American citizenship is a privilege and not a right: “Look, a visa to be inside the United States is a privilege, not a right. And we have to vet these individuals properly. This isn’t about racism. This is about securing the nation and making sure the people inside the United States are secure first and foremost.”He called the mass immigration system ‘lunatic’: “Just because we’re trying to diversify our immigration system is lunatic. President Trump is right — this should be ended, and ended immediately.” The comments came after the Trump administration announced the immediate suspension of the Diversity Visa Programme. The move followed a mass shooting at Brown University College, in which two American students and an MIT professor were killed, and nine others were seriously injured. The suspect was identified as a Portuguese national, Claudio Neves Valente, who reportedly entered the US in 2017 through the Diversity Visa Programme. He was later found dead in a warehouse with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the pause in a post on X, saying the decision was made on POTUS’s orders. “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 said.The Diversity Visa Programme was created under the Immigration Act of 1990 and offers up to 50,000 immigrant visas each year to people from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the United States. Winners of the lottery receive permanent residency, commonly known as a green card.Trump has long criticised the scheme and said it allows people into the country without sufficient screening. Few weeks ago, The Trump administration also imposed travel restrictions on several countries following the fatal shooting of two National Guard soldiers by an Afghan national.
