President Donald Trump has suspended the United States’ diversity visa (green card lottery) programme following a deadly mass shooting at Brown University that left two students dead and several others injured.

US officials say the suspect, a 48-year-old Portuguese national identified as Claudio Neves Valente, entered the United States through the Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV-1) programme in 2017 and later obtained permanent residency. Neves Valente was found dead on Thursday in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, in what police believe was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced that the visa lottery had been paused on the orders of President Trump, describing the programme as dangerous.

“I have paused this visa scheme under President Trump’s direction to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme,” Noem said.

Authorities also believe Neves Valente was responsible for the killing of Portuguese-born Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F. Gomes Loureiro earlier in the week. Loureiro, 47, was shot dead at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, about 50 miles from Providence, Rhode Island.

The Diversity Visa programme allocates up to 50,000 immigrant visas annually through a random lottery system, targeting applicants from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the United States.

In a post on social media, Noem recalled that Trump had previously sought to end the programme in 2017 after a truck-ramming attack in New York City killed eight people. The attacker in that case, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbekistan national and Islamic State supporter, also entered the US through the diversity visa scheme and is now serving multiple life sentences.

The suspension announcement came just hours after police located Neves Valente following a six-day, multi-state manhunt. Investigators said video surveillance and public tips led them to a car rental outlet, where records matched the suspect’s name to their person of interest.

Police later discovered Neves Valente’s body alongside a satchel and two firearms. A nearby vehicle contained evidence linking him to the Brown University shooting, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Brown University President Christina Paxson confirmed that Neves Valente had previously been enrolled at the Ivy League institution from autumn 2000 to spring 2001, where he studied physics at the doctoral level. However, she stressed that he had “no current active affiliation” with the university.

Investigators noted that Neves Valente and Professor Loureiro both studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s. Authorities linked the two cases after CCTV footage and witness accounts placed the same vehicle near both crime scenes.

No motive has yet been established for either attack.

The shooting at Brown University occurred on December 13, when a gunman opened fire inside the engineering building during final examinations. Two students were killed and nine others injured. The victims have been identified as Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American freshman.

Investigations into the attacks and the suspect’s background are ongoing.