L-1 visa application numbers to US increased in 2015, 2016, says study

Recently, USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) released new data on L-1 petitions filed for fiscal years 2015 and 2016. With the L-1 visa, companies are allowed to transfer foreign employees along with their families to the United States from a foreign office for a period ranging from three to seven years. Employees falling under L-1A are executives and managers who transfer to company offices in the United States while those under L-1B are highly skilled workers, not all managers, possessing in-depth knowledge of an enterprise’s systems, technologies, processes or services and products.

It is not unusual for holders of for L-1 visa to get green cards and become lawful permanent residents, who can then become citizens of the United States. Though a nonimmigrant visa, the L-1 visa holders are allowed by law to have ‘dual intent’ of a ‘temporary’ worker and permanent residency eventually. L-1 visa holders who contribute high value to America are eligible for an employment green card category, which is referred to as EB-1C, a green card category with the highest priority employment.

According to the State Department, totally 165,178 L-category visas were issued in 2016, a marginal rise from 164,604 issued in 2015.

Most of the visa holders in the L category hailed either from Asia or Europe. People from these two continents together accounted for 130,929 of the 165,178 of L visas in 2016. It implies that the nationals from these two continents obtained just a tad below 80 percent of all L category visas issued by the US.

Of the ten companies, which applied for L-visas, seven did not have their corporate headquarters in the United States. According to Center for Immigration Studies, the top three companies who brought in the most number of L-visa employees to America were Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant Tech Solutions and IBM. The employees belonged to both the subsidiary in India and the parent company.

Barring Deloitte, all the other companies in the top ten who petitioned for L visas were IT service providers. It was said that most L visa petitioners were technology-related companies.

If you are looking to work in the US, get in touch with Y-Axis, a premier organisation for immigration services, to apply for a visa.