India voiced concern on Sunday over a US visa crackdown, striking a rare critical note even as it expressed broad alignment with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on other fractious issues.
Paying his first visit to India, Rubio said the two countries were on the same page on all major issues, brushing aside recent unease in New Delhi over trade, China and the US/Israeli war on Iran.
India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed that the two countries had a "convergence of national interests in many areas" but publicly took Rubio to task over President Donald Trump's visa policy.
Jaishankar said he "apprised Secretary Rubio of challenges that legitimate travellers face in respect of visa issuance".
"While we cooperate to deal with illegal and irregular mobility, our expectation is that legal mobility should not be adversely impacted as a consequence," he said, noting that visas were key for US-India tech cooperation.
Trump, who has made curbing non-Western immigration a key political priority, has ramped up restrictions and fees for H-1B visas used largely by Indian tech workers, sending applications tumbling.
The Trump administration followed up Friday by saying that applicants for permanent residency, even when in the United States legally, must leave for processing.
"Our nation has been enriched by people who come to our country," said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants.
He said the immigration reforms were "not India-specific" but in response to a "migratory crisis" in the United States.
Aligned on 'all' issues
Rubio, who is paying an unusually long four-day, four-city trip to India, called the country "one of our most important strategic partners in the world".
"It begins with the fact of our shared values. We are the two largest democracies," Rubio said.
"Our nations are strategically aligned on all of the key issues that will define the new century - all the great challenges that are before us now in the modern era," he said.
