Green card lottery suspended as Trump orders USCIS to pause DV scheme

The US diversity visa lottery has been paused after Homeland Security cited security concerns and ordered USCIS to stop processing applications

US President Donald Trump on Friday suspended the green card lottery programme that allows nationals of countries with historically low immigration rates to the United States to apply for permanent residency. The move comes a month after the administration said it would change the Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery entry process for the upcoming DV-2027 programme.

 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the decision was taken at Trump’s direction and that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services had been asked to pause the programme.

 

“The programme allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” said Noem in a post on X.

 

What is the diversity visa lottery?

  The Diversity Visa Lottery, often called the green card lottery, makes up to 55,000 immigrant visas available each year. These are issued through a random selection process to applicants from countries with low levels of immigration to the United States.

 

Applicants who are selected still have to meet education or work experience requirements and clear security and background checks before receiving permanent residency.

 

Who applies and how many are selected? 

Interest in the programme remains high. Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery. Of these, more than 131,000 individuals were selected, a figure that includes spouses and dependants of principal applicants.

 

After selection, applicants must complete interviews and security screening before they are granted entry to the United States.

 

• Up to 55,000 green cards are issued each year

• Selection is done by lottery, followed by vetting

• Applicants must meet education or work criteria

 

Which countries benefit most from the programme?

The programme largely benefits applicants from Africa and parts of Europe, Asia and Oceania that have low rates of migration to the United States. In 2025, Portuguese citizens secured only 38 slots under the lottery.

 

Indian nationals have never been eligible for the Diversity Visa Lottery because India consistently sends large numbers of immigrants to the United States through family- and employment-based routes.

 

What changes were planned earlier to the DV lottery? 

The suspension follows an announcement last month that the Trump administration planned to revise the DV Lottery entry process for the DV-2027 cycle. Details of those proposed changes were not yet been made public. 

What happened in the Brown University and MIT shootings? 

On December 13, 2025, a mass shooting took place at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, during the second day of final examination week for the fall semester. A gunman entered the School of Engineering and opened fire during a review session held ahead of final exams, killing two students and wounding nine others.

 

Two days later, on December 15, 2025, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuno Gomes Loureiro, was shot multiple times outside his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. He later died from his injuries.

 

The shootings triggered a five-day manhunt by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police. Authorities released images and videos of the masked suspect during the search. At the time, investigators said the killing of Loureiro was believed to be connected to the Brown University shooting. The manhunt ended after a person of interest was found dead inside a storage unit in New Hampshire.