More than 200,000 applicants have reportedly chosen to pay the steep $100,000 H-1B visa application fee in exchange for faster processing, according to US Homeland Security Secretary Markeayne Mullin.
Speaking during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Mullin said the premium fee system had significantly sped up visa approvals, reducing processing times to nearly 15 days for those willing to pay the additional amount.
“We had 286,000 applicants so far this year for H-1B visas, and more than 200,000 of them paid the $100,000 fee because it allows us to process their cases much faster,” Mullin said while responding to a question raised by Susan Collins of Maine.
He explained that applicants who did not pay the fee were being processed through the standard route, which currently takes around seven and a half months while authorities review exemption requests tied to the new visa structure.
The issue was raised after Senator Collins highlighted the difficulties faced by rural healthcare institutions due to the costly visa system. She pointed to a hospital in Presque Isle, Maine, which was reportedly forced to pay the $100,000 fee to hire a much-needed surgeon because of severe staffing shortages in the region.
Collins argued that while stricter visa rules may be understandable in sectors such as technology, where there is a larger domestic workforce available, the same logic should not apply to medical professionals serving rural communities with limited healthcare access.
She urged the administration to consider exemptions for hospitals and underserved regions that can demonstrate an inability to recruit qualified American doctors.
In response, Mullin acknowledged the concern but suggested that implementing special carve-outs or exemptions for specific sectors would be difficult under the current framework.
The controversial $100,000 H-1B application fee was first introduced by the Trump administration in September last year. The move was aimed at discouraging American companies from relying heavily on foreign workers instead of hiring domestic talent.
Under existing rules, H-1B visas are issued for an initial period of three years and can later be extended for another three years. Federal law currently caps the number of standard H-1B visas at 65,000 annually, with an additional 20,000 visas reserved for applicants holding advanced degrees.
