The Trump administration plans to fix the diversity visa program then resume it, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told The Daily Signal Friday.
After the alleged shooter of students at Brown University and an MIT professor was found to have entered the country using a diversity visa, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paused the program. The Daily Signal asked Rubio if the State Department is considering permanent changes to the diversity visa program.
“The reason why you suspend this program, it’s not because you argue everybody who came in under that visa is about a person who’s going to shoot a place up,” Rubio said. “It’s because you want to determine whether there’s something in the vetting of that program that’s insufficient, is there a systemic problem, and how those decisions are made that needs to be addressed.”
After the Brown/MIT shooter was found to have entered the US through the diversity visa program, I asked @SecRubio if @StateDept is considering changing the program.
“I think it’s wise to suspend a program until you understand whether there’s a deficiency in the program.”
“You… pic.twitter.com/9AVNwPMu2s
— Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell (@TheElizMitchell) December 19, 2025
Noem announced late Thursday that the Trump administration will pause the diversity visa lottery program after it was found to have been used eight years ago by the man accused of killing an MIT professor and two Brown University students, including College Republicans Vice President Ella Cook. The suspected shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, entered the United States through the lottery in 2017 and was issued a green card.
NEW: Brown University sophomore Ella Cook, identified as one of the shooting victims, was “a devoted Christian and a committed conservative.”
The announcement was made during a service at Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama.
“Some of you haven’t heard a lot of… pic.twitter.com/iSHUKodhZy
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 15, 2025
The diversity visa lottery allows 50,000 people per year from countries with low rates of immigration to America to obtain visas.
Rubio said it’s “wise” to suspend the program until the administration has determined if there’s a deficiency.
“You just had a guy that came in through a certain route, you suspend the program to figure out whether something that came up in the interview process should have been a red flag but wasn’t identified,” Rubio said. “So you can fix that before you restart the program. So I would imagine that’s the process we’re going to go through as well.”
