L-1 Visas: H-1B's Quiet, Powerful Cousin - InformationWeek

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Comments
L-1 Visas: H-1B's Quiet, Powerful Cousin
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DevonW619
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DevonW619,
 User Rank: Apprentice
11/17/2014 | 2:50:58 PM
L-1B Visas
There is one major fault with your arguement in the areas of L-1B's:  Do you have any idea how difficult they are to obtain?  Ask any immigration attorney who files L-1B's for tech companies.  The USCIS has raised the bar so high they are virtually impossible to get.

The big boy's bring folks in on blanket L-1B's issued at US Consulates (where the bar is pretty low, depending on the visa officer), but when it comes to renewal time, the USCIS in the states denies them.   They issue RFE's that start out with basically, "just because you were approved the first time doesn't mean we can readjudicate it now".  

At the same time, the L-1B holders who may not be getting the prevailing wage depart the company the first moment they can and apply for an H1B during "cap season".

 
Joe Stanganelli
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Joe Stanganelli,
 User Rank: Author
11/16/2014 | 12:08:55 AM
Re: Trends
There's a whole laundry list of them -- I think at least one type for every letter of the alphabet.
impactnow
0%
100%
impactnow,
 User Rank: Author
11/15/2014 | 3:45:31 PM
Re: Trends

 

Thanks it's certainly an interesting factor in the mix of salaries for IT professionals. It will be interesting to see if the government decides to cap these visas if they impact the marketplace significantly. It would be interesting to compare how the employment rate would look for IT professionals in the US if all of these 80,000 jobs were US only employees. From my understanding we still have a labor shortage in the US for IT professionals, so would this add to the shortage?

PedroGonzales
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PedroGonzales,
 User Rank: Ninja
11/14/2014 | 5:42:00 PM
Re: Trends
great article Shane.  It is strange that there is a lot of talk about H1-Bs, but not L1s. I think it is important that when discussing immigration, there should be an assessment of all types of visas which are given to foreign nationals.  I heard the majority leader of the house saying that they have other priorities than immigration.  This issue will be put on hold until the next election.
Shane M. O'Neill
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Shane M. O'Neill,
 User Rank: Author
11/14/2014 | 1:02:47 PM
Re: Trends
From the documents I've seen, the number of L-1s have been going up and down incrementally over the past six or seven years, somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 visas issued per year. But they've been on the rise since hitting a low point of 42,000 L-1s in 2005.
brams
50%
50%
brams,
 User Rank: Apprentice
11/14/2014 | 1:00:54 PM
It is not alarming about tech visas
Shane, your analysis is good comparing both visas. But L1 usage is much restricted for companies and path to green card is faster, so they quickly loose the workers. Moreover both visas are getting expensive and lot of administrative burden on the companies, so they first prefer local like green card, citizens in most of the jobs,  only hard jobs like programmers sometine goes to these visas or graduates from colleges including foreign students,  It is not alarming as you described.

Regarding the the usage of these visas by these tech companies, it is about their cost/budget and quality levels.

Instead of moving abroad theya are atleast trying workout something by staying, that way it is better.

 

thanks

Raba

 
impactnow
50%
50%
impactnow,
 User Rank: Author
11/14/2014 | 12:48:15 PM
Trends

 

Shane it's a very interesting overview. Do you have any information on the trends over the past years in these L-1 visas? It would be interesting to see if they are increasing especially from 2008 to now.



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