Washington, D.C. (December 19, 2025) - The Center for Immigration Studies today published a post detailing the background of the Diversity Visa Lottery and its long-documented national security risks. The program has once again come under scrutiny following an attack by a lottery recipient that killed two Brown University students and later an MIT professor. This case is the latest violent crime linked to the program and reinforces warnings that the visa lottery represents an avoidable and persistent threat to American safety and U.S. national security.

The lottery program, created in 1990 to promote immigration from “underrepresented” countries, awards up to 50,000 green cards each year through random selection. Recipients typically have no prior ties to the United States – no family connections, no job offer, and no demonstrated national interest benefit. Selection is based solely on chance.

Warnings about the program’s dangers are not new. In 2005, the State Department’s Inspector General testified before Congress that the lottery program “contains significant risks to national security from hostile intelligence officers, criminals, and terrorists attempting to use the program for entry into the United States as permanent residents.”

Congress has repeatedly examined these dangers. Between 2015 and 2017 alone, three congressional hearings focused on the visa lottery; the Center for Immigration Studies testified at all three. Yet Congress failed to act, despite President Trump calling on Congress to eliminate the lottery and moving to restrict and pause the program during his first term.

The Center has consistently called for elimination of the program. Links to some of the Center’s many publications on the visa lottery are available here.

Andrew Arthur, the Center’s fellow in law and policy and author of the latest post, concludes that after 35 years of warnings, hearings, and tragedies, it is time to end the visa lottery. It benefits few, serves no economic or humanitarian necessity, and exposes Americans to unacceptable risk.