CHARLOTTE, N.C. — International soccer star David Beckham and wife Victoria, formerly Posh Spice of the Spice Girls, don't wait months or years to enter the United States legally.

Beckham's status, bankroll and his attorney see to that. He receives approval for his visa within two weeks. Accommodating U.S. State Department officials grant him after-hours appointments and have asked him to pose for photos.

As an "alien of extraordinary ability," Beckham is eligible for an O-1 work visa reserved for elite figures in sports, science, arts, education and business. These and companion visas for family and support personnel have more than doubled over the past decade.

Meanwhile, specialty workers with degrees can't always bend the bureaucracy like Beckham. Demand for visas from these workers, with professions such as computer programming and accounting, has surged. But the cap remains at 65,000 — what it was in 1992. The 2007 cap was filled May 26, a record four months before the fiscal year begins.

Congress is debating whether to increase these visas to help relieve the backlog, as well as granting legal status to some of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Immigration "law is really geared toward helping the rich and famous," says David Whitlock, a partner who heads immigration practice at law firm Fisher & Phillips in Atlanta.

As for the hospitable inscription on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ... We shut that down and turned it into a national park," Whitlock says.

Indeed, countries have always welcomed the elite.

"And maybe rightly so," says Steve Hader, a lawyer with the Charlotte office of Moore & Van Allen who helped set up Beckham's upcoming visit to the United States. "Maybe you want the best and the brightest."

The Beckhams stand to make money on their upcoming summer trip, so they are required to secure work visas, not tourist credentials.

Some 11,960 esteemed scientists, doctors, musicians, professors, athletes and captains of industry and their family and personnel arrived in 2005, up more than 145 percent since 1995, according to the State Department.

Hader arranged payment of a $1,000 premium processing fee per visa application for Beckham and his entourage to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This was on top of the basic $190 per person application fee. Without the additional payment, the approval could have taken three months or more. With the payment, Beckham's approval was returned within 15 days.