mediotejo.net also spoke to one of Cláudio Valente’s teachers, José Morgado, who taught him at Escola Secundária Maria Lamas between 1992 and 1995, and says that He was the best student he ever had. “Not just in academic terms, but in personal, human terms… he was a very affectionate person with his friends, supportive, always in a good mood and concerned about the well-being of others.”
However, US authorities revealed that Cláudio Valente entered the United States under the program Diversity Visa Lottery, which annually grants permanent residence visas to those who want to immigrate to the United States. The Portuguese national was one of those awarded the visa in 2017, out of 12 million applicants.
Following the murders committed by Cláudio Valente, the lottery program green card was suspended. Yesterday, Friday, the 19th, a State Department spokesperson reported that Marco Rubio “indefinitely suspended the issuance of visas diversity until we know for sure who we are letting into the country.”
The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, left a message on the social network X announcing the suspension of the program green cards, “to ensure that no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.” The official also recalled that in 2017 Trump tried to end this visa regime, following the attack, on October 31, by Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, who entered the USA with a visa diversity and that he killed eight people with a van in New York.