The U.S. government dissolves the Green Card lottery system
The actions of one man changed hundreds of thousands of lives. For 36 years, the United States of America has operated the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program (DV), also known as the Green Card Lottery Program. The DV program randomly selects up to 50,000 people to receive immigrant visas each year; it seeks to diversify the immigrant population from solely immigrants with student visas or employer sponsors. However, on January 1st, 2026, the system was abolished following a serious incident involving a program participant. In addition to its discontinuation, the State Department has banned immigration to the U.S. from over 75 countries, increasing the number of banned countries to a total of 93. The list consists predominantly of African countries. Abolishing the DV will prove to be a grave mistake by the Trump administration because of the overall benefit immigrants provide to the US.
The Trump administration and the State Department claim their actions are meant to protect the safety of all U.S. citizens. The administration announced the abolishment of the DV program immediately after Claudio Neves Valente, an immigrant who received a visa through the lottery, perpetrated two major shootings at Brown University and the home of an MIT professor. In response to these atrocities, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem stated, “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.”
The Trump administration has been openly against the DV Program for years. After the shooting, the administration finally saw an opening. They are using the heinous acts of one man to put an end to a program that lets hundreds of thousands of immigrants help our country. Compared to the population of natural citizens, the “harm” immigrants cause is significantly less. In 2025, the DV system granted 131,000 people citizenship, and the U.S. noted that those coming through the DV system have a lower crime and incarceration rate than native-born American citizens. As of 2023, the incarceration rate for native-born Americans is 1,221 per 100,000 compared to 319 per 100,000 for legal immigrants. This is another fact that Secretary Noem left out when making her address. Not only are legal immigrant crime rates lower, but they also greatly benefit the nation’s economy. They pay a larger percentage of taxes than they use and accounted for around three-quarters of the growth in the labor force between 2000 and 2022. Finally, legal immigrants also account for 40% of the founders of Fortune 500 companies. The statistics clearly show that immigrants benefit the country. With the termination of the DV, hundreds of thousands of immigrants from low immigration rate countries have lost their opportunities at starting a new life in America. The ban will not only harm those immigrants’ lives, make the American Dream less achievable, and once again make the U.S. a more exclusive place to live, but it will also harm the country’s economy. Looking ahead, as the Trump administration continues to fight against immigration policies, they have set their sights on abolishing birthright citizenship—a case Trump plans to take to the Supreme Court. Yet a question remains: should thousands be punished for the actions of one?
