Trump suspends green card lottery programme that let Brown University, MIT shootings suspect into US
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery programme on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump's direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the programme.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit.
It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa programme makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the US, many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem's announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump's administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on US soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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Kerala CM Vijayan flags ‘The Kerala Story 2’ as ‘threat to secularism’
Thiruvananthapuram (PTI): Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Wednesday expressed concern over the upcoming release of the second part of 'The Kerala Story', claiming that its first installment was made with the "intent to spread hatred against the state and undermine its secular tradition."
Vijayan, in a statement issued by his office, also questioned how "poisonous works produced to spread division and hatred in society" were allowed to be screened, while a film like 'Beef' was barred from a film festival.
He further said that Sangh Parivar centres had taken over and spread the false narrative conveyed by 'The Kerala Story'.
“They are spreading false propaganda by portraying even marriages conducted with mutual consent as examples of communalism and forced religious conversion,” the CM said.
He contended that such forces view Kerala—with no communal riots and a tradition of mutual respect among communities—with hostility, and termed them “enemies of the state” attempting to destroy the peace and tranquility of the region.
“We must collectively reject attempts to portray Kerala, a land of religious harmony that stands at the forefront of sustainable development and is a model in maintaining law and order, as a center of terrorism,” Vijayan said.
“It is the responsibility of each of us to ensure that Kerala’s secular foundation is not undermined by false propaganda and to reject it by upholding the values of secularism and brotherhood,” he added.
Directed by Kamakhya Narayan Singh, the teaser of 'Kerala Story 2: Goes Beyond', was released recently.
The first film, 'The Kerala Story', won awards for Best Direction and Best Cinematography at the 71st National Film Awards.
