The United States wants to work with India to advance economic ties and address concerns related to “irregular migration”, newly-appointed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday.

Rubio and Jaishankar met in Washington just after a meeting of the foreign ministers of Quad nations. This was the first meeting of the dignitaries since Donald Trump began his second term as the US President on Monday.

The Quad is a strategic international coalition comprising India, the United States, Japan and Australia.

After their meeting, the US Department of State said that Rubio and Jaishankar discussed a “wide range of topics…including critical and emerging technologies, defense cooperation, energy and on advancing a free and open Indo-Pacific region”.

“Secretary Rubio also emphasized the Trump Administration’s desire to work with India to advance economic ties and address concerns related to irregular migration,” said the US Department of State.

The meeting came against the backdrop of New Delhi expressing readiness to cooperate with the US to identify and repatriate Indian citizens residing illegally in the country, according to Bloomberg.

Authorities from both nations have identified approximately 18,000 undocumented Indian migrants in the US for deportation, Bloomberg reported citing unidentified persons. The true number could be higher because the total population of undocumented Indian immigrants in the US is not clear.

“As part of India-US cooperation on migration and mobility, both sides are engaged in a process to deter illegal migration,” the report quoted Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal as saying.

Jaiswal added: “This is being done to create more avenues for legal migration from India to the US.”

After meeting Rubio, Jaishankar said in a social media post that they “reviewed our extensive bilateral partnership” and “also exchanged views on a wide range of regional and global issues”.

Shortly after being sworn in, Trump on Monday signed a series of executive orders including one to stop automatically granting citizenship to those born in the US in specific scenarios.

He directed federal agencies to refuse to recognise citizenship for children who were born in the country to mothers who are in the country illegally or are there legally on temporary visas, if the father is not a United States citizen or a green card holder.

A green card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, allows an individual to stay and work permanently in the United States.

Twenty-two US states have filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s order.

Legal consensus broadly holds that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees birthright citizenship.

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