Trump suspends green card lottery programme: Will it impact Indians?

US President Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump has suspended “Diversity visa program”, commonly known as the green card lottery system, that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to enter the country.

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem took to X and said that at Trump's direction, she was ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to pause the programme to ensure that no more Americans were harmed by the “disastrous” program.

"This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country," she said.

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. In 2017, President Trump…

— Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 19, 2025

Trump suspends green card lottery programme: Will it impact Indians?

The diversity visa programme makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the United States, many of them in Africa.

It disqualifies countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the last five fiscal years to boost entries from low-admission nations. As India, China, Mexico and the Philippines frequently cross this limit, their nationals are generally barred from the green card lottery.

In 2021, 93,450 Indians immigrated to the US, rising to 127,010 in 2022, surpassing the total immigrants from South America (99,030), Africa (89,570), or Europe (75,610). Based on the data from the US Department of Homeland Security, in 2023, 78,070 Indians moved to the US, confirming the country’s ineligibility for the lottery until 2028.

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.

Lesser immigration route for Indians

With the diversity visa route closed for Indians, Indians are left with limited permanent immigration paths to the US. Options range from converting an H-1B visa into permanent residency to investment-based migration, asylum, or family sponsorship.

But with stricter immigration measures under President Donald Trump, these avenues are steadily shrinking, leaving both prospective migrants and employers uncertain.