President Clinton will sign the new H-1B visa bill into law when it crosses his desk, the White House confirmed Thursday. The new law, which passed both houses of Congress last week, will allow an additional 317,500 international IT workers to live in the United States, working for U.S. companies. Though most will likely come from India, the visas are open to any qualified foreign national. This is the second temporary increase in H-1B quotas in three years.

The American Electronics Association and the Information Technology Association of America hailed its passage: Without the new law, the quota would have dropped back to 65,000 by 2002. With an IT labor shortage that the ITAA estimates at 1.6 million workers, the new measure should offer some relief, says ITAA VP Jeff Lande, but it's hardly a cure.

Pushing for more H-1B visas has been one of the 26,400-member association's top priorities since the bill's introduction into Congress. Passage was delayed, Lande insists, because of partisan tactics and not because of opposition to the measure. With a 96-1 Senate vote, his seems a fair assessment. "Trying to move it forward [in an election year] led to a number of members tying the bill to unrelated issues," he says.

Not everyone is happy about the bill's likely passage, however. Professor Norman Matloff of the University of Southern California contends that employers exploit foreign workers, H-1B or not, citing a May article in Forbes that reports Indian programmers with H-1B visas typically earn 25% to 30% less than their American peers. And U.S. Rep. Eva Clayton (D-N.C.) is circulating a letter asking for a presidential veto.