I’m with Trump on this one. It’s unfortunate that it took a terrorist attack to revisit this program.

US President Donald Trump has called for the green card lottery to be scrapped, saying it allowed the New York truck attack suspect into the US.

In a series of tweets he called for the immigration programme to be replaced with a merit-based system.

Mr Trump pinned blame for the scheme on Senator Chuck Schumer, who accused Mr Trump of cutting anti-terror funding.

Authorities have not yet confirmed how the suspect in Tuesday’s attack, Sayfullo Saipov, immigrated to the US.

Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning: “The terrorist came into our country through what is called the ‘Diversity Visa Lottery Program,’ a Chuck Schumer beauty. I want merit based.