The Donald Trump administration suspended the Green Card lottery program after Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who came to the US through this lottery pathway was found to be the suspect of Brown University shooting and he also killed an MIT professor. Valente was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Valente entered the US throgh the diversity lottery immigrant visa program in 2017 and was granted a green card, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said adding that the 'heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country'.
DV1 program is the Green Card lottery, which is meant for people who are born in countries which have historically low immigration to the US. Green Card lottery is not the Green Card program and the suspension of the program does not affect countries like India, China (mainland), because these countries already have a higher immigration rate to the US.
The Diversity Visa lottery was a random selection process where 55,000 individuals were granted Green Cards. 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.
List of countries to be affected as Trump suspends Green Card lottery
This is a general list of countries which are eligible for Green Card lottery though the list may change every year. And now with 39 countries featuring on Trump's travel ban list, there has been a lot of immigration restrictions. But a general list of countries that used to qualify for Green Card lottery includes:
AfricaSeveral African countries are now on Trump's travel ban list and they automatically do not qualify for travel to US.
Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Congo (DRC), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
EuropeMultiple European and Eurasian countries are also to be affected by former Donald Trump’s proposed immigration restrictions. Nationals from these countries may face limitations under the revised policy framework aimed at tightening entry norms.
Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vatican City.
OceaniaAustralia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu.
South America, Central America & CaribbeanAntigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela
India, China, Mexico, Canada, UK (except Northern Ireland), Philippines, South Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam did not qualify for the Diversity Visa.