It isn't localized in current versions so I don't think that it will be changed in future versions because of backward compatibility. 

john@perl:~$ perl -e'
my $lines = qq[one
two
three
four
];
open F, "<", \$lines or die "open: $!";
while ( <F> ) {
    last if /h/;
    }
print $_;
'
three

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In reply to Re: Auto-localization of $_ in while(<>) by jwkrahn
in thread Auto-localization of $_ in while(<>) by repellent

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