How to dodge the H-1B visa scramble

While the fight continues over H-1B visas, some companies have been tapping into another kind of visa to get approval for foreign IT workers in the United States. They're called L-1 visas and they are non-immigrant visas that allow companies operating in both the United States and overseas to transfer certain classes of employees into the United States for up to seven years. The L-1A visa is a bit restrictive, however. It is for managers and executives, or for employees with specialized knowledge that cannot be found in the U.S.

"One regulation is that you'd have to have worked for the company outside the U.S. for at least a year - this will not help people right out of school," Robert Meltzer, an immigration attorney and CEO of VISANOW, an online immigration processing company, told eWeek. It's going to be an interesting week in the race for visas. On Tuesday, April 1, the application process will open for this year's 85,000 H-1B visas. If the past predicts the future, there will be such a flood of applications that it will close out by the end of the day. And the debate continues to rage in Congress, on the presidential campaign trail and at tech companies in need of qualified workers.

For more on the race for worker visas:
- Check out this eWeek article