Surge in L1 visas to US presaged

The recent announcement by the US Citizenship and Immigration Service that it has exhausted the H-1B visa quota seven months before the current fiscal, will result in a spurt in the L-1 visa category, said immigration attorney Sudhir Shah. Indian form a majority of all skilled professionals who visit the US under the H-1B visa category.

H-1B visas are granted to foreigners in speciality professions such as computer programming, architecture, engineering and medicine and are valid for a period up to one years.

L-1 visas are granted for inter company transfers where an Indian company has a subsidiary in the US. It is believed that there may be a spurt in the L-1 applicants since many Indian IT firms have subsidiaries in the US.

"With the quota for H-1B visas having been exhausted, there is likely to be a huge spurt in the L-1 visas to the US this year," said the Mumbai-based Sudhir Shah. He added that around 50,000 Indians, mostly software professionals, go to the US under H-1B category and this number is likely to double this year.

Last month the US government announced that it will not accept any more new applications for the H-1B visa programme until April 1 and will not issue any new H-1B visas until October 1, 2004.

"The biggest advantage in the L-1 visa is that there is no quota limit and almost all Indian software companies have a base in the US," Shah said.

But he reminded that though no fresh H-1B visas will be issued until October 1, prospective applicants must begin making preparations as applications will be accepted from April 1.

"More than 50 per cent of all H-1B visas issued are for Indian professionals, and this trend is likely to continue. Although the disadvantage of this saturation will be that professionals will not get visas for a period of six years, there is bound to be a spurt in L-1 visas," he said.

H-1B visas were launched in 1990 with a quota of 65,000 visas. However, in 1998-99, owing to a spurt in demand for jobs in the IT industry, the limit was increased to 1.95 lakh. The quota is mainly applicable to private applicants, government workers and those of voluntary organisations, Shah said.