Sec. of State Marco Rubio fired back during a contentious meeting with his Indian counterpart over immigration and specialized visas.
By Catholics for Catholics
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and officials from New Delhi sparred verbally over immigration during his visit to the South Asian nation, as the External Affairs Minister of India complained about the Trump administration tightening of visas and other procedures, according to a story by The Daily Wire.
Still, Rubio assured Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s External Affairs Minister, that America’s new immigration laws were not meant specifically against his country or immigrants. Instead, he said it was part of a broader global overhaul of the system.
The fracas took place during Rubio’s visit to India this week, raising concerns over delays and disruptions affecting H-1B visa holders and their families.
“We hope that these delays and these disruptions will be addressed,” a representative for the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said during a press briefing shortly after the rule change in late December. The spokesman contended that lengthy scheduling issues for visa appointments were causing hardships for Indian nationals, disrupting family life and affecting children’s education.
Jaishankar echoed those concerns at Sunday’s joint press conference, raising the impact of expanded U.S. review procedures introduced in December that subject H-1B applicants and their H-4 dependents to mandatory online-presence reviews at all U.S. consulates worldwide.
“While we cooperate to deal with illegal and irregular mobility, our expectation is that legal mobility would not be adversely impacted as a consequence,” Jaishankar said. “After all, this is very relevant to our business, technology, and research cooperation.”
Nevertheless, Rubio made clear the Trump administration has no intention of watering down its immigration reforms simply because some countries are feeling the effects more severely than others.
“What I want to leave clear is that the changes, while they may be having a disproportionate impact on a place like India that provides so many high-skilled workers to the U.S. economy, it is not a system that is targeted at India,” Rubio said during a Sunday press conference in New Delhi. “It is one that’s being applied globally.”
The secretary of state repeatedly framed the reforms as part of President Donald Trump’s broader “America First” immigration agenda, arguing the United States has been forced to modernize its system after years of what he described as a migration crisis.
“We’ve had over 20 million people illegally enter the United States over the last few years, and we’ve had to address that challenge,” Rubio said. “This is not because of India, but broadly.”
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