All it takes to get a visa

“Our immigration system makes it very difficult for US firms to hire highly skilled foreign workers,” Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told Congress in March as he pleaded for more visas. “At a time when talent is the key to economic success, it makes no sense to educate people in our universities, often subsidised by US taxpayers, and then insist that they return home.”

Frustrated by the limited number of these so-called H-1B visas for highly skilled foreigners awarded each spring in a lottery, US technology executives have tried to find ways around the problem while lobbying to increase the annual cap.

Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Intel Corp. and other large companies have opened or expanded research facilities outside the United States. And some companies have resorted to gaming the system: filing multiple applications, along with the $1,570 to $3,320 filing fee, for each potential hire to boost the odds of winning one of the coveted visas.

Efforts to increase the annual allotment of visa have become entangled in the even more volatile debate over border security and immigration reform that is stalled in Congress as well as concerns by some lawmakers that jobs are being taken from US workers.

“This is an outsourcing visa,” said Kim Berry, president of the Programmers Guild, a California advocacy group that opposes more H-1B visas. Berry said it’s cheaper for companies to hire foreign college graduates than older US workers.

Last year, US immigration officials received about 150,000 applications for the 65,000 annual allotment of visas on the first day companies could file, forcing them to pick winners in a lottery.

California technology companies, as well as financial institutions, culinary institutes and health-care providers, have pushed Congress to raise the annual limit...