India’s Information Technology firms have decided to hire more locals and step up acquisitions in the United States to fight the trend of protectionism that is expected to follow the election of Republican Donald Trump as the country’s president, according to Reuters. India’s $146-billion (Rs 9.71 lakh crore) IT industry depends heavily on the H1-B visa programme, which allows non-US citizens to work in the country.

During his election campaign, Trump had said “I will end forever the use of H1-B as a cheap labour programme.” Companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro are among the most frequent users of the H1-B visa. An estimated 86,000 new H1-B workers were sent there by these three companies between 2005 and 2014.

Pravin Rao, chief operating officer at Infosys said that there has been a trend of protectionism and push back on immigration across the world lately. “We have to accelerate hiring of locals if they are available, and start recruiting freshers from universities there,” he said adding that the shift in practice would add to the company’s cost as they would have to train locals instead of hiring experienced hands. Infosys hires around 500-700 people each quarter in the US and Europe, and locals comprise 80% of the intake.

Rao also said that the company would look at accelerating acquisitions to help counter protectionist regulations that they expect to be introduced by the Trump regime. Wipro echoed similar sentiments when Chief Financial Officer Jatin Dalal said the firm would purchase companies that would expand its horizons. The firm intends to bring in companies that offer something that Wipro does not, such as Appirio, a US cloud services firm.

Tech Mahindra is also planning to adopt a similar strategy. Chief Executive CP Gurnani said his company was looking to add to its US acquisitions, mainly in the healthcare and financial technology sector. Indian software companies have invested more than $2 billion (Rs 13,739 crore approximately) in the US in the past five years.