The Same Government That Needs India Is Pushing Indians Away

The State Department has been unusually clear about what a visa is.

A U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right. — U.S. Embassy in India

That declaration now applies to the citizens of the country the same administration's National Security Strategy names as its critical partner for defense, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing in the Indo-Pacific. The 2025 strategy document casts India as the counterweight to what it calls "predatory economic practices" in the region ^[1].

We must continue to improve commercial (and other) relations with India — Franklin D. Roosevelt

The contradiction lives inside one institution's vocabulary. The same department that needs Indian engineering talent for its China strategy has formally framed the Indian professionals who provide it as security threats. And it is not just framing. ICE arrested 1,993 Indian nationals in 2025 — more than double the prior year. Of those, 1,669 had no criminal convictions ^[2].

We’re focused on the murderers, the drug dealers. — Donald Trump

The administration revoked over 8,000 student visas, though a federal judge called the process arbitrary. Stephen Miller set a target of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day ^[3]. Agents deployed to over a dozen airports, using TSA traveler data to make arrests ^[4]. The US deported 54 men from Haryana — many shackled or handcuffed during the flight — after detention periods of up to 14 months ^[5]. The State Department ordered diplomats in allied nations to pressure host governments to restrict immigration, formally rejected the UN Global Compact on Migration, and declared its goal was "remigration — not replacement migration" ^[6][7]. The pipeline that supplies the talent for the strategic partnership is collapsing under the weight of this regime. H-1B visa approvals for the top seven Indian IT firms fell 70 percent since 2015, to just 4,573 in fiscal year 2025 ^[8]. Visa fees reached $100,000. The H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act now before the Senate would impose higher wage thresholds, a 50 percent cap on H-1B and L-1 workers at companies with more than 50 employees, and shorter maximum stays ^[9]. LinkedIn data shows a 40 percent increase in tech professionals relocating to India in the third quarter of 2025 — the very innovation capacity the strategic tech partnership was designed to keep on American soil ^[10]. The diplomatic consequences are no longer theoretical. India's Ministry of External Affairs confirmed it is raising visa-policy difficulties with the US side ^[11].

But having said that, let me tell you that as and when there are issues of difficulties, which are brought to our attention, in regard to genuine travellers [and] students, among others, who seek support from the US, we take up those issues with the US side so as to minimise the difficulties that our people face — Randhir Jaiswal

The framing is deferential — sovereign nations set their own immigration rules — but the channel is open and active. India confirmed 1,076 of its nationals were deported from the US in 2026, after a record 3,567 in 2025, and described itself as in continuous dialogue with Washington regarding migration and mobility ^[12]. The political damage runs deeper than the diplomatic channel suggests. US-India relations hit their lowest point in 25 years in December 2025, with analysts describing the relationship as being in the worst shape in almost a quarter century ^[13]. India cancelled the November 2025 Quad Summit — the flagship Indo-Pacific stability initiative — after Trump falsely claimed he had used trade threats to prevent a nuclear war between India and Pakistan ^[14]. The Carnegie-YouGov 2026 Indian American Attitudes Survey found 55 percent of Indian Americans disapprove of the administration's management of US-India relations and 64 percent disapprove of its immigration policies ^[15]. The diaspora that serves as the human bridge of the strategic partnership is being politically alienated. Senator Mark Warner, the co-chair of the Senate India Caucus, made the warning explicit ^[16].

Trust is broken very easily and it’s very hard to repair — Mark Warner

And yet the formal partnership survives. The two countries are expanding defense and civil nuclear cooperation, including the adoption of trusted AI and other emerging technologies ^[17].

Under this (Trump) Administration, US engagement with India is creating jobs at home and strengthening supply chains that are critical to both the United States and the region. — Paul Kapur

The bilateral trade agreement is nearly complete, with a target of $500 billion by 2030. The Quad Critical Minerals Framework is operational. A 10-year Major Defence Partnership Framework and the Pax Silica semiconductor initiative are moving forward ^[18]. Apple is now manufacturing the iPhone 17 in India and planning the iPhone 18 there. Formal cooperation survives because both sides need it — India for technology and defense capability, the United States for a counterweight to China that no other country can provide. The question is whether a partnership maintained by mutual need but eroded at the level of trust can function as the stability architecture its architects intended. The hedging suggests the market is pricing in the risk that it cannot. India resumed border trade with China through the Lipulekh, Shipki La, and Nathu La passes on August 1, ending a six-year hiatus after the 2020 Galwan Valley clash ^[19]. Foreign Minister Jaishankar was explicit about the precondition.

Peace and tranquility in the border areas is obviously the prerequisite for normal ties. — S. Jaishankar

Modi is building bilateral strategic networks outside the Quad framework — 20 agreements and a $600 million defense package with Indonesia, a Strategic Defence Partnership Framework with the UAE, defense collaboration talks with Saudi Arabia, a first visit to New Zealand in 40 years yielding a naval logistics pact ^[20][21]. India and Canada agreed to expand defense cooperation in late July, with Modi noting four meetings in under a year ^[22]. Each of these moves is sensible on its own terms. Together they form an independent Indo-Pacific architecture that reduces reliance on the US-led Quad. US allies are pivoting too. Only 21 percent of Australians trust Trump to act correctly in world affairs — the lowest in Lowy Institute polling history and statistically identical to trust in Xi Jinping ^[23]. The UK, Canada, and the European Union are all deepening trade ties with both India and China, driven in part by the unpredictability of American tariff policy ^[24]. The administration is not unaware of the tension. Trump's May 2026 pledge that India can count on him 100 percent was delivered during a visit by Secretary of State Rubio that was itself a damage-control exercise for Trump's social media post calling India a "hellhole" ^[25]. Rubio dismissed the post with a shrug.

Anything India wants, they get. I am a big, big fan of Prime Minister Modi — Donald Trump

The pattern is now familiar: the stability narrative is constantly being repaired from self-inflicted damage rather than proactively built. The partnership still exists on paper. The defense frameworks, the minerals initiative, the trade deal, the nuclear cooperation — all of it is real and advancing. But the same government that needs Indian trust is converting it, piece by piece, from an architecture to be relied on into a transaction to be managed. The hedging — India reopening border trade with China, Modi building strategic networks from Jakarta to Riyadh, allies recalibrating toward Beijing — is the market pricing in the risk that the two tracks cannot coexist indefinitely. How long the formal partnership can run on mutual need alone, while the trust that would make it durable is eroded by the same government that requires it, is the question the next year will answer.