(Providence) Washington announced on Friday the immediate “suspension” of the issuance of visas by drawing lots, a popular program from which the man – of Portuguese nationality – suspected of having killed two students at the American Brown University and a professor at MIT had benefited.
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“Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, the perpetrator of the Brown University shootings, entered the United States in 2017 through the Diversity Visa Program (DV1) by lottery and obtained a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed into our country,” the US Secretary of Homeland Security wrote on X.
Kristi Noem ordered Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) “to suspend the DV1 program to prevent other Americans from becoming victims of this disastrous program.”
The visa lottery system was established in 1990 and allows U.S. residency cards to be issued to some 50,000 people each year, provided they meet required eligibility criteria, including a high school diploma or work experience.
An examination and interview are required before being issued a visa. Every year, tens of millions of people try their luck in this particular lottery.
Aged 48 and residing in Miami, the suspect in the Brown University shootings was found lifeless, Providence (Rhode Island) police announced Thursday evening.
The Portuguese “killed himself,” said the city’s police chief, Oscar Perez, during a press conference. His body was found in a storage container in New Hampshire along with two guns. He appears to have acted alone.
The shooter first opened fire Saturday in Brown’s engineering and physics building. Two students, Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, were killed and nine others injured.
PHOTO BING GUAN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Two students, Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, were killed.
He is also suspected of having killed Monday evening, some 70 kilometers away, a professor at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A professor since 2016 at MIT, Nuno Loureiro taught nuclear science and engineering. He was found shot Monday evening at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts. Aged 47, he was pronounced dead in hospital the next day.
Tracking
No motive has yet been put forward to explain these events, which occurred at two of the most prestigious universities in the country.
Before Claudio Neves Valente was identified and then found dead, investigations seemed to stall, with investigators increasing calls to the public to identify two people filmed in the streets of Providence.
PROVIDENCE POLICE PHOTO, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente
The first, a stocky man dressed in dark colors, masked and wearing a cap, was considered the suspect. The other may have been in contact with him, according to law enforcement.
The case was then relaunched thanks to a trail of financial data and video surveillance images collected at the two crime scenes.
A reward of $50,000 was also promised for any information leading to the arrest of the author, considered “armed and dangerous”.
The suspect was “sophisticated in the way he covered his tracks,” said federal prosecutor Leah Foley. He changed the license plates on his vehicle and used a phone that investigators struggled to locate.
Gun violence
The killing fuels the recurring debate in the United States on the carrying of weapons, guaranteed by the Constitution and to which many Americans remain very attached.
In 2024, more than 16,000 people, not including suicides, were killed by firearms in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.
“Nothing will ever truly repair the lives shattered last weekend by gun violence,” said Brown University President. “But now our community can move forward and begin a process of repair, recovery and healing.”
In 2007, a student shot and killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech University campus before committing suicide, the deadliest school shooting in the nation’s history.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump, hostile to gun control, insisted on the issue of video surveillance on his Social Truth network.
“Why did Brown University have so few security cameras?” There is no excuse. In the modern era, you can’t do worse!!! “, he estimated.
