Trump halts US green card lottery over security fears
The Trump administration has suspended the United States Diversity Immigrant Visa Programme, widely known as the green card lottery, citing security concerns after recent deadly shootings. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that, on President Donald Trump’s directive, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has been ordered to pause the programme. The Diversity Visa scheme offers up to about 50,000 permanent resident visas each year to people from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the US, many of them in Africa. Beneficiaries are selected through an electronic lottery and can later apply for full green cards and, eventually, citizenship. Officials linked the suspension to an ongoing investigation into shootings at Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the suspected gunman is reported to have entered the US through the lottery programme and later obtained permanent […]
