[p_l]

It's how big tech with multinational offices manages to handle lack of enough H-1B, among other things.

You hire someone in local office for a year, then arrange L-1B visa which has no numerical issuance limits - but requires at least one year of previous employment with the company sponsoring the visa.

There's also L-1A which IIRC doesn't require time in company but is limited only to upper management in practice.

[angott]

L-1A also requires the employee to have worked at the foreign subsidiary of the US company for at least 12 consecutive months.