WASHINGTON: More than two lakh applicants opted to pay USD 100,000 for their H-1B visas to work in the US in the fiscal year 2026, Markwayne Mullin, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said here.

Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday, Mullin said the DHS had received about 2.86 lakh H-1B applications in the fiscal year 2026.

“We had 286,000 applicants a year to date for the H-1B visas, out of those, over 200,000 of them paid USD 100,000 to be able to come in because it allows us to process them in a little bit faster of a manner,” Mullin said in response to a question by US Senator Susan Collins on the shortage of doctors in rural parts of the country.

Mullin said applicants paying USD 100,000 get their papers processed in about 15 days and it takes about 7.5 months to process other applications.

Collins told the subcommittee that a hospital in Presque Isle, a rural community in northern Maine, recently had to pay the fee to secure a much-needed surgeon from overseas.

She said that medical service providers serving remote areas should be treated differently from employers recruiting highly skilled workers in sectors with larger domestic labour pools.

"Would you be willing to consider carving out an exemption for medical professionals from this fee when a community can demonstrate that there is not a medical professional available?" Collins asked.

Mullin assured the Senator that he would look at possible solutions on whether such applications could be dealt with some flexibility on a case-by-case basis.

"I would suggest that there's a huge difference between bringing in a computer expert from another country to work in wealthy California and Silicon Valley versus a much-needed surgeon to work at a rural hospital in northern Maine," she said.

Republican Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski flagged concerns about the shortage of teachers in school districts in rural areas of her state.

"I'll follow up with you about the issue that I raised previously with regards to H-1B visas for teachers," Murkowski told Mullin.