External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said he had discussed with his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, the challenges that legitimate travellers from India face in securing a US visa. He made the remark as the duo addressed a joint press conference in New Delhi following the delegation-level bilateral talks they held earlier in the day.

“People-to-people ties are at the heart of the [India-US] relationship. I apprised Secretary [of State] Rubio of challenges that legitimate travellers face in respect to visa issuance. While we cooperate to deal with illegal and irregular mobility, our expectation is that legal mobility would not be adversely impacted as a consequence. After all, this is very relevant to our business, technology and research cooperation (sic),” said Jaishankar during the press interaction.

The US Secretary of State said, “It is not a system that is targeted at India; it is one that’s being applied globally. But we’re in a period of transition, and like any period of transition, there’s going to be some bumps on that road (sic).”

Rubio remarked that the US is undergoing a period of “modernisation” of its immigration system.

He stated, “We’ve had a migratory crisis in the United States. This is not because of India, but broadly, we have had over 20 million people illegally enter the United States over the last few years, and we’ve had to address that challenge.”

Rubio further expressed hope that the immigration system in the US will be more beneficial to Indians in some ways once the administration of President Donald Trump is done modernising it.

“Once we are complete and once we’ve done the work of modernising that system, I think we’re going to come up with… I think we’re going to come up with a system, we’re going to wind up with a system that’s more efficient and even better than the previous system, and in some ways may prove to be even more beneficial than the previous system was to people from India that seek to enter the United States to work and innovate,” he told the press.

RUBIO TO VISIT AGRA, JAIPUR

Rubio arrived in India on Saturday, May 23, and began his visit from Kolkata, where he visited the headquarters of the Missionaries of Charity. Later in the day, he travelled to New Delhi and met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rubio is scheduled to visit Agra and Jaipur before returning to the national capital for the upcoming Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting involving India, the United States, Japan and Australia.