Indian-origin Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal criticised US President Donald Trump on X after he ordered a suspension of the US green card lottery.She called the move an exploitation of a recent tragedy to push an anti-immigrant agenda.Pramila said that there is no doubt that visa applicants have to go through tough procedures before even setting foot in the US: “Visa applicants go through some of the most rigorous vetting our country has. Trump is exploiting this horrific tragedy to advance his anti-immigrant, xenophobic agenda and shut down more legal pathways.” The MAGA chief’s decision followed the deadly shootings at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, on December 13, where two students were killed and nine others injured. The suspect was a Portuguese national identified as 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who also allegedly killed MIT physics professor Nuno Loureiro two days later in Massachusetts. However, after an intense manhunt, the shooter’s dead body was found in a New Hampshire storage facility. He was found with a self-inflicted gunshot.Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem said she had instructed the US Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the Diversity Visa (DV1) program at Trump’s direction. Valente had entered the United States through the DV1 program in 2017 and was granted a green card.Noem also raised an alarm regarding the lottery program. She said that Trump had previously moved to end it following the 2017 New York City truck attack by an ISIS-linked terrorist, who also entered the US under the DV1 program.The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program allocates up to 50,000 visas each year through a lottery system, targeting applicants from countries with low rates of immigration to the US. The program randomly selects winners, who are then vetted and issued green cards if approved.
