US Visa Changes, India and Rubio's Global Argument

Secretary of State Marco Rubio used his visit to India this week to argue that the Trump administration’s visa changes are global rather than aimed at Indians. In an interview with The Indian Express, reported on Oct. 21 by Business Today and the Hindustan Times, Rubio said “this is not about India, this applies globally,” while acknowledging that “certain categories of visas” draw large numbers of Indian applicants. Federal figures on H-1B approvals and student enrollment show why both statements can be true at once: the US visa changes India has been watching are written for everyone, but they land hardest on Indian workers, students and the employers who hire them.

The remarks came during an Oct. 17 to 22 trip that took Rubio to Samarkand, Mumbai and Jamnagar, according to the State Department. They land at a sensitive moment. Eight large employers have had their green card labor certifications frozen by the Labor Department, the State Department says it has revoked more than 300,000 visas since January 2025, and a DHS proposal to end the 60-day grace period for laid-off H-1B workers is still open for comment.

What Rubio said about visas and India

Rubio framed the changes as repairs to “20 years of neglect” and said the effort “is not targeted towards India.” Birth tourism, he said, “has nothing to do with India but with other countries.” He also separated the people the administration wants from how it wants them to arrive: “We want people to study in the United States,” he said, “But we want it done through a system of laws that are complied with.”

“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, according to both outlets.

In a separate Oct. 20 interview with News18 at the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, published by the State Department, Rubio was asked about a foiled plot against a Hindu temple in Illinois and about anti-India hostility. “I do not believe, nor have I ever perceived, that anti-Indian sentiment in the United States is widespread or deep,” he said, while condemning those who are “hateful.”

Why global visa rules land hardest on Indians

A rule written for every nationality still lands where the applicants are, and in the two programs at the center of the debate, Indians are the largest group by far.

Measure	India	China
Share of approved H-1B petitions, FY2023	72%	12%
International students in the U.S., 2024/25 academic year	363,019	265,919

Sources: Congressional Research Service, The H-1B Visa for Specialty Occupation Workers (IF12912, Feb. 18, 2025), citing USCIS data for fiscal year 2023; Institute of International Education, Open Doors 2025 (Nov. 17, 2025), for the 2024/25 academic year.

More than 386,000 H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal 2023, and 69% were for continuing employment rather than new hires, the Congressional Research Service reported. That second number matters. Most of the people touched by tighter extension reviews, a shorter grace period or a frozen green card case are already working in the United States, not applicants abroad. With India-born workers holding 72% of approvals, roughly seven in ten approved petitions reached by any across-the-board H-1B restriction would involve India-born workers, based on the CRS figures.

Students show the same pattern. India sent 363,019 students to U.S. campuses in 2024/25, up 10% from the year before, out of 1,177,766 international students overall, according to the Institute of International Education. New international enrollment fell 17% in fall 2025, the institute reported. Any change to student visa vetting, post-graduation work or the H-1B pipeline reaches India’s students first. Nothing in these rules names a country, and the administration’s case is that it enforces them evenly. The practical effect is still concentrated, because the programs themselves are.

What the remarks do and do not change

An interview is not policy. Rubio announced no exemption, carve-out or new visa arrangement for Indian nationals, and none of the pending measures has been withdrawn. Anyone in H-1B, F-1 or green card processing is governed by the same rules and deadlines as before the trip.

What the remarks do signal is that Washington is unlikely to treat visas as a bilateral bargaining chip, even as trade talks with New Delhi continue, so relief for Indian workers is unlikely to come through diplomacy. The decisions that matter will come through the usual channels: the outcome of the Labor Department’s PERM freeze, the final version of DHS’s grace period rule after comments close Nov. 10, and court rulings on the $100,000 H-1B fee.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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