US President Donald Trump meets with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the G7 summit on Wednesday in Evian-les-Bains, France. AP/PTI
Washington: US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor has sought to reassure Indians over the Trump administration’s immigration measures, saying changes to the US visa system are “not targeted at India” and that people-to-people ties, trade and defence cooperation between the two countries will continue to grow.
In an exclusive interview with IANS at the White House, Gor said the administration’s immigration reforms were part of a broader effort to overhaul the entire US immigration system rather than measures aimed at any particular country.
“I don’t think the big item to remember on that is this is not targeted at India,” Gor said when asked about concerns surrounding H-1B visas and reports of increased immigration enforcement in the United States.
“The United States, we had to take stock of the whole immigration system, every kind of visa,” he said. “Unfortunately, under previous administrations, our borders were wide open. That’s something the President wanted to fix on day one.”
Gor said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump shared similar views on tackling illegal immigration.
“It’s actually something the Prime Minister relates to,” he said. “When I listen to the Prime Minister speaking in India, he talks about no illegal migrants. We 100 per cent agree with that.”
The US Ambassador said India’s large population naturally meant more Indians were affected by changes in US immigration procedures, but stressed that the reforms should not be seen as India-specific.
“Of course, India’s a massive population, so you’re impacted by it,” he said. “But things continue.”
Gor pointed to the scale of visa operations in India as evidence of the strong people-to-people exchanges between the two nations.
“Our Embassy is one of the busiest embassies in the world as it relates to visas, as you know,” he said.
“So the people-to-people ties will continue, trade will continue, commerce will continue.”
Highlighting the broader strategic partnership, Gor said India and the US share deep cooperation in multiple sectors.
“India exports more to the United States than anywhere else in the world,” he said. “India does more defence exercises with the United States than any other country in the world.”
“So we have incredible things happening. We’ll continue building on that.”
On energy cooperation, Gor said New Delhi had already increased purchases of US energy and argued that diversifying supplies would strengthen India’s energy security.
“I think we’ve already seen an incredible increase in energy coming from the United States,” he said. “For India, that’s a good thing. You want to be diversified. You should not have all your energy supplies coming from one place.”
Referring to the recent crisis involving Iran, Gor added: “Unfortunately, when Iran decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, which are international waterways, the whole world was impacted by it. So having different sources is a good thing for every country.”
India remains one of the largest sources of international students and skilled professionals entering the United States, while Indian companies continue to expand investments and operations across the American market.
The movement of students, professionals and business travellers has remained a key pillar of the India-US relationship.
The partnership between the two countries has expanded significantly over the past two decades, covering defence, technology, trade, clean energy and critical supply chains.
Despite periodic differences over immigration and trade policies, both governments have continued to describe India-US ties as one of their most important strategic partnerships.
This post was last modified on June 27, 2026 3:16 pm