The Trump administration has decided to pause the U.S. Diversity Visa lottery program, known as the green card lottery. The move is affecting thousands of Moroccans who are regularly selected through the program. DR ‹ › The Trump administration has announced a pause of the U.S. Diversity Visa (DV) lottery program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Thursday. «At President Trump's direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV-1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program», Noem wrote in a post on X. She linked the decision to recent violent incidents, notably the shootings at Brown University in Rhode Island on December 13. According to Noem, the suspect connected to the attack had entered the United States in 2017 through the Diversity Visa program. The Brown University shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card. This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country. In 2017, President Trump… — Secretary Kristi Noem (@Sec_Noem) December 19, 2025 «In 2017, President Trump fought to end this program following the devastating New York City truck-ramming attack carried out by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV-1 program and murdered eight people», she added. Commonly known as the green card lottery, the Diversity Visa program grants around 55,000 permanent resident visas each year to applicants from countries with historically low levels of immigration to the United States. Morocco's place in the U.S. Green Card Lottery Morocco is among the countries eligible for the program. Over the years, thousands of Moroccans have been selected through the DV lottery. Over the past four years, roughly 4,000 Moroccan applicants have been selected annually, according to the US Department of State's stats. In 2021, a total of 4,458 Moroccans were selected. That year, Morocco ranked among the 15 most represented nationalities in the program, alongside countries such as Egypt and Algeria. The figures have remained relatively stable, with 4,138 selected in 2022, 4,469 in 2023, 4,250 in 2024, and 4,237 in 2025. For the 2026 cycle, whose results were announced earlier this year, 3,670 Moroccan applicants were selected. The program's process includes several stages, including background and security checks, medical examinations, and consular interviews. After being selected (or winning) in the DV lottery, applicants are allowed to apply for a Diversity Immigrant Visa which places them in a queue with a case number. They may proceed to the next steps only if visas remain available. Each year, U.S. authorities select significantly more applicants than the number of visas issued, as many do not ultimately qualify, withdraw, or fail to complete the process. It is worth noting that nearly one month before the announcement of the DV lottery pause, President Donald Trump said his administration would «permanently pause migration from all Third World countries», following the killing of a National Guard member in an attack near the White House. Prior to that, U.S. Homeland Security officials said Trump had ordered a broad review of asylum cases approved under the Biden administration, as well as of Green Cards issued to citizens of 19 countries.
