The United States President Donald Trump has announced the immediate suspension of the green card lottery programme following a shooting incident at Brown University.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Thursday, December 18, announced that Trump had ordered the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the programme.

The suspension follows a shooting incident at Brown University in which a gunman opened fire inside a classroom, killing two undergraduate students.

According to the U.S. government, the suspected shooter is said to have entered America through the diversity lottery immigrant visa programme in 2017 and was granted a green card.

"At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme," said Noem.

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The Homeland Security boss disclosed that President Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery, noting that such programmes contravened the U.S immigration policy.

"In 2017, President Trump fought to end this programme, following the devastating NYC truck ramming by an ISIS terrorist, who entered under the DV1 programme and murdered eight people," she added.

Meanwhile, the suspected Portuguese shooter who killed the two undergraduate students on December 13, also shot dead the university professor in an incident that left nine others injured. 

However, he was later found dead in what investigators claim could have been a result of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The latest development comes as a major blow for many countries, including Kenya, which has long benefited from the programme, granting several Kenyans access to the U.S.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa, commonly referred to as the green card visa lottery, is a U.S government initiative which grants foreigners the permit to enter America at a low rate.

Winners of the lottery are always selected randomly through a computer programme, which uniquely permits people to go abroad to learn or acquire better jobs.