A former senior official from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has issued a stark warning: the Donald Trump administration might move to permanently terminate the Green Card program altogether. This alarming prediction comes in the wake of the administration's recent decision to suspend the Diversity Visa Lottery, commonly known as the Green Card lottery.
A Pattern of Using Incidents to Halt Immigration
Ricky Murray, who served as the USCIS chief of staff for Refugee and International Operations until November, told Newsweek that the current move follows a familiar and concerning pattern. He pointed out that the administration has previously stalled immigration requests from Afghanistan and other nations after an Afghan national was suspected in a shooting in Washington DC.
Now, the administration has cited the Brown University shooting and the killing of an MIT professor to justify suspending the Green Card lottery. The accused in that case, a man of Portuguese origin, had obtained US citizenship through the Diversity Visa program. "This fits the pattern we continually see under this administration," Murray stated, "where one bad actor’s actions are cast onto everyone using that avenue for their immigration processing."
He criticized the approach, saying officials use a blanket rationale to bar entire groups without considering individual merit. "The U.S. immigration system had always been set up to weigh individual merit, while this administration is attempting to flip the script and box everyone together and look for one misstep to judge them all," Murray added.
Green Card Lottery vs. Other Green Card Programs
It is crucial to understand the distinction between the suspended program and other avenues. The Green Card lottery, or Diversity Visa (DV) program, was a random selection process granting up to 55,000 individuals from countries with low US immigration rates a chance for permanent residency. Its suspension does not directly affect countries like India, Pakistan, China, and the UK, as their citizens were not eligible for this lottery due to higher immigration numbers.
In contrast, there are four other main Green Card categories that remain operational for now:
- Family-based immigration
- Employment-based immigration
- Humanitarian programs
- Special Immigrant Visas and other special programs
Murray's concern is that the administration's next target could be these broader, more significant Green Card programs, leading to a potential full-scale shutdown.
Indian-Origin Attorney Condemns the Suspension
Prominent Indian-origin immigration attorney Cyrus Mehta strongly condemned the suspension of the Diversity Visa lottery. He argued that the program, mandated by Congress, should not be blamed for an individual's criminal actions.
"One person’s bad actions should not be used to shut down the entire Diversity Visa program," Mehta said. He highlighted a critical inconsistency in the administration's reasoning: "The alleged killer in this case is from Portugal, which hardly qualifies from among the countries that Trump has denigrated."
Mehta suggested that the administration is using the tragic killings as a pretext to shut down immigration programs it has historically disfavored, recalling President Trump's past derogatory comments about immigrants from certain nations. "The administration should not be using these unfortunate killings as a pretext to shut down immigration programs it disfavors," he concluded.
The developments signal a continued hardline stance on immigration by the Trump administration, raising anxieties among potential immigrants and legal experts about the future of legal pathways to the United States.
