No Infosys employee apprehended by US authorities: CEO Salil Parekh

Infosys CEO and Managing Director Salil Parekh on Wednesday clarified that no employee of the IT major has been apprehended by US authorities, dismissing viral social media reports about a purported deportation of a staffer.

During the company's Q3 earnings call, Parekh, responding to a specific question, said the rumours that had been circulating online over the past few days.

"No Infosys employee has been apprehended by any US authority. A few months ago, one of our employees was denied entry into the US and was sent back to India," Parekh said.

The clarification comes in the wake of a post on social media platform X by a user named Chetan Anantharamu, which went viral earlier this week.

 

The post narrated what Anantharamu described as a "wild wild story" involving an Infosys employee from Mysuru who was allegedly on-site for a project in the United States.

According to the post, the employee was purportedly "picked up by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents and given just two hours to pack his belongings before being offered a choice between jail or deportation.

The post further claimed that the employee was escorted by agents to the airport and subjected to humiliation during a transit in Frankfurt, alleging that public announcements were made on the aircraft stating he should not be allowed to escape.

Infosys will continue its approach of using a mix of employees in India and the US for deployments and delivery.

India's USD 280-billion IT industry is balancing visa-related headwinds and global trade uncertainty against its biggest-ever push into artificial intelligence and the rapid expansion of global capability centres (GCCs).

Heightened scrutiny of the US H-1B visa programme, including a USD 1,00,000 fee for new visas, social media screening and unpredictable processing delays, has complicated cross-border delivery for Indian firms, even as companies accelerate efforts to reduce reliance on these visas. The US remains the sector's largest export market.