CHENNAI: The Indian IT industry could face its biggest challenge till date, as President-elect Donald Trump gets his hands closer to implementing his rhetoric, which protects an American worker. With his campaign platform being prioritizing jobs and wages for US workers, this bias could work against homegrown companies like Infosys and US majors like IBM, Cognizant Apart from imposing additional taxes, the Trump regime is also expected to cap H-1B visas , a preferred route for Indian IT houses, to send thousands of tech workers to the US. Several analysts including BofA Merrill Lynch , BNP Paribas, TheStreet, Nomura have downgraded stocks of IT players including Cognizant, Wipro, MindTree, Persistent Systems. Analysts have also slashed their price targets on Infosys, HCL, anticipating rising costs and lower revenues.BofA Merrill said that the potential for immigration reform as more of a ‘when’ than ‘if’. "Given the vast majority of Cognizant’s US workforce is on H-1B visas, it is to be noted that in the past, sentiment has moved ahead of legislative action," said the brokerage in a report on Wednesday.As IT majors make strides into cloud, digital and networking, their need for sending less skilled workers has gone down. “Thanks to cloud, IT companies today need to send less number of people overseas. The few they send are highly skilled workers, who manage teams working in India,” said Senthil Nayagam, CTO, FixNix, Inc.Indian corporates have weathered the impact of higher visa fees, which was raised by $2,000 per H1B visa late 2015, and increasing their hiring of local talent. “Indian IT bigwigs took out significantly fewer H1B visas in 2015 than in 2012, and are looking to reduce numbers even further,” said Abhiram Eleswarapu, analyst, BNP Paribas.The Trump administration could have a near-term, margin impact. Indian IT firms are already paying as much as $70-$80 million a year to the US Treasury, according to a Nasscom study. It is significant that the industry body slashed their annual IT growth forecast to 8%-10% this month.Indian IT players have seen employee costs rising with higher wages and rising localization. “In fact, all the six IT majors — TCS, Wipro, Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, HCL - pay their H1B visa holders wages on par with those paid to their US employees, which we believe is well above the normative threshold specified as per role/geography,” JP Morgan said in its latest report.“Any immigration reform would require the Senate and the House of Representatives to pass proposed legislation into law. So, at best, the President could be an influential factor for, but not the sole agent effecting H-1B reform,” JP Morgan added.