In first bilateral talks with Trump admin, US brings up irregular immigration, India says always open to return

The two sides are also discussing the possibility of a meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the AI summit in Paris on February 11-12, sources said.

Jaishankar told reporters that “levels of trust are very high” and “the trust is a more systemic sentiment”.

“There’s a very visible chemistry between Prime Minister Modi and President Trump, and that also, in a sense, percolates through the system and reinforces that comfort and trust… So, there was a very visible appetite to get this relationship moving to do more, to set bigger goals. So that was a sort of feeling in the room,” he said.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the Quad meeting, in Washington DC. (PTI)

Rubio “emphasised the Trump administration’s desire to work with India to advance economic ties and address concerns related to irregular migration”, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a readout after the meeting.

Jaishankar framed the conversation about mobility of people. “We have a position on mobility, which is a principled position, applies to all countries as a government. We obviously are very much supportive of legal mobility, because we do believe in a global workplace. We want Indian talent and Indian skills to have the maximum opportunity at the global level. So at the same time, we are also very firmly opposed to illegal mobility and illegal migration, because you also know that when something illegal happens, many other illegal activities get joined on to it. And it is not desirable. It is certainly not reputationally good. So we have with every country and the US is no exception. We have always taken the view that if there are any of our citizens who are not here legally, if we are sure that they are our citizens, we have always been, you know, open to legitimate return to India.”

“And I conveyed that very clearly to Secretary Rubio… At the same time, I also told him that, look, while we understand all of this, and I also accept that these are autonomous processes, it is in our mutual interest to facilitate legal and mutually beneficial mobility. If it takes a 400-odd days waiting period to get a visa, I don’t think the relationship is well served by this. So I think he also noted that part. So, let us say how we take that forward,” he said, bringing up the high visa wait times at the US embassy and consulates in India.

On economic cooperation, he said “the overall sense is there are a lot of opportunities here… in an era of more technology-centric progress, the message I got was we appreciate the value of India as a partner. There are domains we want to work on. There are systemic things we need to do to sort of optimize collaboration.”

Donald Trump signed executive orders to curb immigration in the US (AP Photo)

“There will be the economic interests of the two countries… We will sit down and talk about it and discuss that when the moment is opportune… the deeper sentiment is — you have your interest. We have ours. We have to harmonize it.”

The twin themes of illegal immigration and tariffs are expected to dominate the conversation between Delhi and Washington DC in the Trump 2.0 administration.

The two ministers affirmed a shared commitment to continuing to strengthen the India-US partnership (PTI)

If the Trump administration moves on deportations, among the first affected could be the 20,407 “undocumented” Indians, as of November 2024, who are either facing “final removal orders” or are, currently, in detention centres of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Of these, 17,940 “paperless” Indians are not in detention but are under “final removal orders,” and another 2,467 are in detention under ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO).

Jaishankar, however, cautioned about these numbers: “I have seen some numbers. I caution you about them, because for us, a number is operative when we can actually validate the fact that the individual concerned is of Indian origin,” he said.

That said, deportation of illegal immigrants from India in special flights will be bad optics. Even with the Biden administration, about 1,100 illegal immigrants from India were deported in the last year itself. So, there has been a steady trickle of deportations, but they have been kept low-key and under-the-radar. With Trump at the helm, and advised by Stephen Miller, these deportations are expected to be high-visibility events.

Asked if the court cases about the alleged assassination plot against pro-Khalistan separatist figure Guruptwant Singh Pannun came up for discussion, Jaishankar said it did not figure in the discussions.

Rubio and he discussed deepening the US-India relationship, in particular on critical and emerging technologies, defence cooperation, energy, and on advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region.

This means that the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), which was started during the Biden administration between the National Security Advisors, is expected to continue in the new administration as well.

The two ministers affirmed a shared commitment to continuing to strengthen the India-US partnership, State Department spokesperson Bruce said.

“They discussed a wide range of topics, including regional issues and opportunities to further deepen the US-India relationship, in particular on critical and emerging technologies, defence cooperation, energy, and on advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region,” she said.

Jaishankar said that the focus was on iCET, semiconductors and supply chain.

Besides iCET, the emphasis on defence cooperation is more than welcome from the Indian side — it was under the Trump administration that the foundational agreements including BECA, COMCASA were signed. Also, the Trump 1.0 administration had backed India during the crises with its neighbours — Doklam, Pulwama, Balakot and Galwan.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, 2nd left, with Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya, left, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, 2nd right, and Australia’s Penny Wong during a Quad Foreign Ministers meeting, in Washington DC. (PTI)

In the advancement of the free and open Indo-Pacific region, the Trump 1.0 administration had revived the Quad grouping in November 2017, on the sidelines of the ASEAN and East Asia summits in Manila.

Jaishankar said the issue of Bangladesh came up for discussion briefly.

He had attended the inaugural celebrations after the swearing-in ceremony of Trump. “It was the first time I was myself at an inauguration. It was something which was very impressive. What I saw was really a very confident, upbeat, incoming administration, I mean that feeling… look, we need to get things done. And where India is concerned, that you are a partner with whom we can get things done,” he said.

During the event, he met the 56th Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He also interacted with Kash Patel, the nominee for the Director of the FBI.

On the US walking out of the WHO and the Paris climate pact, he said it was the US administration’s decision and he will leave it at that.

Asked about the new US administration’s China policy, he said he would not like to comment publicly about it, but there was “positive sentiment towards India”.