Also, Congress may consider ending outsourcing by raising H-1B wages to $132k.

The Trump administration has drafted an executive order that would change the way H-1B visas are used. H-1Bs are widely used in the tech industry to hire foreign workers.

“Our country’s immigration policies should be designed and implemented to serve, first and foremost, the U.S. national interest,” the draft reads, according to Bloomberg, which has viewed the copy and first reported on the matter. “Visa programs for foreign workers... should be administered in a manner that protects the civil rights of American workers and current lawful residents, and that prioritizes the protection of American workers—our forgotten working people—and the jobs they hold.”

Businesses would have to try to hire American first. If they recruit foreign workers, priority would be given to the most highly paid, according to the Bloomberg report.

Beyond that, not much detail about the order is available. It covers not just H-1B visas, but other categories including L-1, E-2, and B1. Even without details, the news was enough to drop stock prices on Tuesday for Indian technology companies like Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro.
That’s because the changes are likely to mirror changes already being considered in Congress, which would have the effect of limiting outsourcing companies' abilities to replace American workers. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) announced a bill that would tweak the H-1B system earlier this month.

Last week, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced a more wide-ranging bill which would change the allocation of H-1B visas to a market-based system. In her system, most visas would be given to employers willing to pay 200% or 150% of prevailing local wages for highly talented workers.

“My legislation refocuses the H-1B program to its original intent–to seek out and find the best and brightest from around the world and to supplement the U.S. workforce with talented, highly-paid, and highly-skilled workers who help create jobs here in America, not replace them,” said Lofgren.

The 65,000 H-1B visas given out each year go mostly to employers who hire technology workers. They are distributed in a lottery system, which in recent years has become dominated by tech outsourcing firms like Tata and Infosys. Those outsourcing firms, which are defined as “H-1B dependent” companies, need only to pay $60,000 annually to their workers in order to be exempt from various requirements, including demonstrating that they aren't displacing American workers.

Issa’s bill would raise that requirement to $100,000 per year, while Lofgren's bill would peg it to wage surveys that would make the minimum about $132,000. Lofgren’s bill would also get rid of the lottery system and replace it with a kind of market-oriented auction system.

In 2013, according to one analysis, the top nine firms using H-1B visas were all outsourcing firms. The 10th was Microsoft.