Rubio says US immigration curbs not aimed at India, blames 'mass migration' for visa crackdown

US secretary of state Marco Rubio has sought to allay Indian concerns over Washington's tightening of immigration rules, saying the changes are part of a global effort to overhaul the American immigration system and are not targeted at India, despite their impact on Indian students and skilled professionals.

“From your perspective here in India, it may seem targeted at India, (but) it’s not,” Rubio told The Indian Express in an interview. He said the Donald Trump administration was attempting to address what it viewed as years of neglect of the immigration system and alleged misuse of visa programmes.

“The biggest threat to legal immigration is illegal immigration. The biggest threat to legal immigration is mass migration,” Rubio said, adding that the latter was “not an Indian phenomenon” but was more closely associated with other parts of the world.

His remarks come amid concerns in India over the Trump administration's tougher approach to immigration, including restrictions affecting work visas and the scrutiny faced by foreign students and skilled professionals seeking to enter the US.

The changes have raised questions about the future of opportunities for Indians, who form a significant share of applicants for several American visa categories.

Rubio, however, said Washington continued to welcome people seeking to visit, study, work and invest in the US, provided they complied with the country’s immigration laws.

“We want people to visit the United States. We want people to study in the United States. There are certain people that we want, that want to come work for a time in the United States. We want people to invest in the United States,” he said in the interview.

“But we want it done through a system of laws that are complied with,” he added.

'Fixing' immigration system

Explaining the administration's approach, Rubio said the US was seeking to address what it considered longstanding problems in its immigration framework.

He alleged that 20 million people had entered the country unlawfully during Joe Biden's four-year presidency and said several visa programmes had been abused.

“Again, it is not unique to Indians or India,” he said, citing birth tourism as another example of practices the administration was seeking to address.

Rubio acknowledged that the impact of the changes could appear disproportionately large in India because of the extensive economic and people-to-people ties between the two countries, as well as the number of Indians applying under particular visa categories.

“Because of the developments, because of the ties between our countries, because of how developed your economy is, there are certain categories of visas that see a large number of Indians applying for,” he told Indian Express.

The US, he added, was seeking to build an immigration system that would be sustainable over the long term. Once the system was fixed, he argued, it could ultimately benefit people using the programmes while serving American interests.

“There is virtually no country on Earth that I visit where I don’t get a complaint about some visa or process, because we are fixing it globally,” Rubio said.

India-US look to bolster ties

The remarks come as New Delhi and Washington seek to maintain momentum in bilateral ties despite differences over trade, tariffs and energy relations. In the interview, the US secretary of state described the relationship as positive and said it had become a feature of American foreign policy.

He said the two countries were close to finalising a trade agreement, with 99% of the work completed and only weeks, rather than months, remaining to conclude it.

Trade tensions have been a source of friction, with the Trump administration's tariff measures and its approach to India's purchases of Russian oil adding to uncertainty in bilateral economic relations. Rubio said the tariffs were not intended to punish or harm India, arguing that Washington was attempting to balance its foreign policy objectives with the need to preserve important partnerships.

He also sought to reassure New Delhi over Washington’s engagement with Pakistan, saying the US relationship with no country would come at the expense of its ties with India.