India, May 24 -- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio used the second day of his three-day India visit to launch what he called an "America First" visa scheduling tool and to dedicate a new consular wing at the US Embassy in New Delhi, framing every visa decision as a national security decision even as the broader trip was being sold in Washington as a reset of strained ties with the world's most populous democracy.

Rubio inaugurated the embassy's new annex on Saturday and used the platform to announce a revamped consular system that, US officials said, would prioritize business and investor visas, rebuild the network of appointment slots that collapsed during the pandemic, and route applications through tighter vetting and screening before...