The Donald Trump administration has suspended the United States Diversity Visa Lottery programme, a move that affects tens of thousands of prospective immigrants and follows recent deadly campus shootings that have reignited debate over immigration screening and national security.
The suspension, announced on Thursday, 18 December 2025, was ordered by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who directed the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to pause the programme while a security review is conducted.
The decision comes in the wake of shootings at Brown University that left two students dead and nine others injured, as well as the killing of a professor linked to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
US authorities have confirmed that the suspect in the attacks, a Portuguese national identified as Claudio Neves Valente, entered the United States through the Diversity Visa Lottery in 2017. He was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The Diversity Visa Lottery, established by Congress several decades ago, allocates up to fifty thousand (50,000) permanent resident visas each year through a random selection process. The programme is intended to promote immigration from countries with historically low migration rates to the United States and has been particularly significant for applicants from African countries and other underrepresented regions.
US Visa
Despite the limited number of visas available, interest in the programme remains exceptionally high. Nearly twenty million people applied for the 2025 lottery, with more than one hundred and thirty-one thousand (131,000) individuals selected, including spouses of successful applicants. Those selected must still undergo extensive background checks and interviews at US consulates, similar to other immigrant visa applicants.
This is the second time the programme has been suspended under President Donald Trump. It was previously halted in 2020 as part of broader immigration restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. President Trump has long criticised the lottery system, arguing that it poses security risks and undermines merit-based immigration.
Donald Trump Photographer: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Bloomberg
However, the latest suspension has raised legal and procedural questions. As the programme was created by Congress, immigration experts say the decision is likely to face legal challenges. There is also uncertainty over whether the Department of Homeland Security has the authority to suspend the programme unilaterally, given that most diversity visas are issued by the US State Department rather than USCIS.
The State Department has not yet clarified how the suspension will affect applicants already at various stages of the process.
