US President Donald Trump ordered the suspension of the programme that had allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to enter the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Thursday, December 19, that, at President Donald Trump’s direction, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been instructed to pause the DV programme, which makes up to 50,000 immigrant visas available each year through a lottery system.
The diversity visa programme, administered by the US Department of State, is designed to promote immigration from countries with historically low rates of migration to the United States. Under its rules, countries that have sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the US in the previous five fiscal years are barred from participating.
As a result, India, China, Mexico and the Philippines have consistently remained excluded from the green card lottery. According to data from the US Department of Homeland Security, 93,450 Indians immigrated to the US in 2021, rising to 127,010 in 2022, and at 78,070 in 2023, keeping India outside the programme’s eligibility threshold until at least 2028.
According to official US figures, nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 diversity visa lottery, with over 131,000 applicants selected, including spouses. Selected candidates must still undergo vetting before being granted entry into the US.
Impact on India
With the diversity visa route already closed to Indians, the suspension is not expected to have a direct impact on Indian nationals, as they are largely ineligible due to high immigration numbers. Indians continue to rely on alternative routes such as H-1B-to-green card conversions, family sponsorship and investment-based visas, though these pathways face tighter scrutiny under the Trump administration.
The US State Department, in its previously released instructions for the DV-2026 programme, had allocated up to 55,000 diversity visas for the fiscal year. However, the new order has cast uncertainty over the programme’s future.
“For DV-2026, natives of the following countries are not eligible to apply because more than 50,000 natives of these countries immigrated to the United States in the previous five years,” the State Department said in an official document published on its website in October.
The list of ineligible countries includes India, China, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Pakistan, Nigeria, Philippines, South Korea and Vietnam, among others, while natives of Macau SAR and Taiwan remain eligible, the document noted.
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