India, June 3 -- Over 200,000 people have opted to pay the $100,000 H-1B visa application fee in order to receive faster processing of their applications, said US Homeland Security Secretary Markeayne Mullin on Tuesday. Speaking at a Senate hearing related to his department, Mullin stated that paying the additional fee had allowed applicants to have the applications processed in roughly 15 days.

"We had 286,000 applicants a year to date for the H-1B visas. Out of those, over 200,000 of them paid the $100,000 to be able to come in, because it allows us to process them in a little bit faster manner. In fact, when we do that, we're able to process them in about 15 days, because we're able to throw stuff out," Mullin said in response to a qu...