New Delhi: US President Donald Trump has said India would do what is right when it comes to taking back illegal immigrants. His statement followed the phone conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.
“Discussed immigration with Modi. India will do what is right when it comes to taking back illegal immigrants,” Trump told reporters on Monday aboard Air Force One on his way back to Joint Base Andrews from Florida.
He also said that PM Modi would probably be visiting the White House for a meeting with him in February, though no official confirmation of the same has been made by India's external affairs ministry.
In a meeting with EAM S Jaishankar last week, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed a desire to address concerns related to irregular migration. Jaishankar has also clarified his position on the issue, saying New Delhi was open to the "legitimate return" of Indian nationals living 'illegally' abroad, including in the United States.
Prime Minister Modi shared his thoughts on the phone conversation with Trump via X, saying, “Delighted to speak with my dear friend President @realDonaldTrump. Congratulated him on his historic second term. We are committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership. We will work together for the welfare of our people and towards global peace, prosperity, and security.”
Delighted to speak with my dear friend President @realDonaldTrump @POTUS. Congratulated him on his historic second term. We are committed to a mutually beneficial and trusted partnership. We will work together for the welfare of our people and towards global peace, prosperity,…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) January 27, 2025
The White House also released a handout that called the phone call "productive" and said Trump sought a "fair" bilateral trading relationship and deeper India-US cooperation.
The two leaders also discussed plans for Modi to visit the US, the White House said in the handout. “Today, President Donald J Trump held a productive call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. The two leaders discussed expanding and deepening cooperation," the White House said.
This was the second phone conversation between the two leaders after President Trump’s re-election; the first took place just after Trump won the election in November 2024. The two leaders have shared a close personal relationship going back to President Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021. The US president jointly addressed a rally hosted for Prime Minister Modi in Houston in 2019 called the “Howdy Modi” rally and then he travelled to India in February 2020 for a “Namaste Trump“ in Prime Minister Modi’s home state Gujarat.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar represented the Prime Minister at Trump’s inauguration last week and attended all related events, even a prayer service where guests included the Trump family, cabinet members and the US President allies in the tech world, such as Elon Musk of Tesla, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google.
Jaishankar also became Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first foreign guest for a bilateral at the State Department, following a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, along with Australia’s Penny Wong and Japan’s Iwaya Takeshi.
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