[Dixielandjazz] US Visa Rules for Foreign Performers

[Jim and Darcy Rourk]

Not just performers but faculty as well.

We have started academic terms with temporary faculty due to these issues.

Just not fun and we have been working on one visa for over a year!

Dr. Jim

-----Original Message----- 
From: Stephen G Barbone
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 10:36 AM
To: Dr. Jim Rourk
Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] US Visa Rules for Foreign Performers

This situation needs to be fixed.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


April 11, 2012 - NY TIMES - By Larry Richter
U.S. Visa Rules Deprive Stages of Performers

Everything seemed set for the American debut last month of Pitingo,
the rising young flamenco singing star: the Grand Ballroom at
Manhattan Center had been booked, tickets and program prepared, a
publicity budget spent, nonrefundable airline tickets purchased. But
when he went to the United States Embassy in Madrid to pick up his
visa, he learned that his name was on the “no fly” list.

Embassy officials knew that Pitingo, whose real name is Antonio Manuel
Álvarez Vélez, is not a terrorist, and that the real target was
someone else who shared his very common name. But procedures are
procedures, and by the time the confusion was sorted out it was too
late for Pitingo to fly to New York, and his concert had to be
canceled. His management and the concert promoters incurred losses of
nearly $25,000.

The case of Mr. Álvarez is not an isolated one. In the decade since
the attacks on the twin towers, American visa procedures for foreign
artists and performers have grown increasingly labyrinthine, expensive
and arbitrary, arts presenters and immigration lawyers say, making the
system a serious impediment to cultural exchanges with the rest of the
world.

Some foreign performers and ensembles, like the Hallé orchestra from
Britain, have decided that it is no longer worth their while to play
in the United States. Others have been turned down flat, including a
pair of bands invited to perform at the South by Southwest festival in
Austin, Tex., last month, or have ended up canceling performances
because of processing delays, as was the case last month with the
Tantehorse theater troupe from the Czech Republic, which was booked to
perform in suburban Washington.

Overall, according to Homeland Security Department records, requests
for the standard foreign performer’s visa declined by almost 25
percent between 2006 and 2010, the most recent fiscal year for which
statistics are available. During the same period the number of these
visa petitions rejected, though small in absolute numbers, rose by
more than two-thirds.

“Everything is much more difficult,” said Palma R. Yanni, a former
president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who also
handles artists’ visas. “I didn’t think it could get worse than it was
after 9/11, but the last couple of years have been terrible. It just
seems like you have to fight for everything across the board, even for
artists of renown. The standards have not changed, but the agency just
keeps narrowing the criteria, raising the bar without notice or
comment, reinterpreting things and just making everything more
restrictive. We call it the culture of no.”

A foreign artist seeking authorization to perform in the United States
must navigate a system that involves a pair of government departments.
Homeland Security, created in 2003, evaluates the initial application
and then, if approval is granted, the State Department, assuming it is
satisfied with the results of an in-person interview with the
performer, issues a visa at an embassy abroad.

Congress requires the process to be financially self-sustaining,
rather than depend on taxpayer support, which in practice means that
fees are typically higher than those of other countries. Homeland
Security even offers an expedited “premium processing fee” of $1,225
per application — over and above the standard $325 filing fee — that
is supposed to guarantee a response within two weeks, but arts
administrators complain  that the agency sometimes fails to meet its
own deadline.

As part of the process the arts group sponsoring performances in the
United States must also submit written proof of the artist’s
qualifications, all duly translated into English. Even then there is
no guarantee of timely approval of a visa request, since there are
often additional “requests for evidence” of a performer’s artistic
worth or personal background. The government advises performers and
ensembles to submit paperwork at least 90 days before they hope to
receive a visa, but arts administrators say that delays of up to six
months are not unusual.

“There’s no two matters that play out in the same way,” said Jonathan
Ginsburg, a Washington-based immigration lawyer whose firm, Fettman,
Tolchin & Majors, represents the North American Performing Arts
Managers and Agents association and other arts groups. “You can’t for
a moment let your guard down, or something nasty is going to happen.”

Complicating matters even more are American rules for foreign
performers that do not allow for applications before tour contracts
are signed. “If you get stuck in a six-month security delay, that’s
the end of the road, and you pretty much miss your show,” said Matthew
Covey of Tamizdat, a Brooklyn company that last year filed more than
800 visa applications for foreign arts organizations.

Government agencies say that the enhanced procedures they have adopted
are needed to safeguard American citizens. “We want to facilitate
legitimate travel to the U.S., but we need to keep security as our
highest priority,” said a State Department spokesman, who invoked
department rules that do not allow him to be identified by name.

In many cases foreign troupes must also pay a “consultation” fee of up
to $500 to an American union to certify that its performances will not
adversely affect the interests of American artists. “It’s a revenue
stream for the unions, with no cap in sight,” Mr. Ginsburg said.

As a result, some large ensembles are now simply avoiding the United
States. In 2006, for example, the Hallé orchestra of Manchester,
England, canceled an American tour that was to include a performance
at Lincoln Center after orchestra administrators calculated that
complying with visa regulations for a group of more than 100 musicians
and staff members was going to cost them more than $70,000.

“This palaver of getting visas is mind blowing,” John Summers, the
orchestra’s chief executive, said at the time.

In many cases delays in obtaining visas, arts administrators and
immigration lawyers say, are simply the result of a slow and
cumbersome bureaucracy. But they point to other cases, especially
those involving artists with recognizably Arab or Muslim names.
European diplomats and arts administrators say that when they submit
visa requests for their orchestras or theater and dance ensembles, any
performer with such a name is almost automatically subjected to what
is known as “additional administrative processing.”

“It seems to be a question of the names, of anything that sounds like
it could belong to a bad guy,” Mr. Ginsburg said. “Ostensibly it is
not U.S. policy to profile. But they are looking for other words to
describe the same thing.”

Government agencies deny that any such discriminatory policy exists.
Homeland Security “strictly adheres to a zero tolerance policy that
prohibits profiling on the basis of religion, race or ethnicity,” said
Chris Bentley, a spokesman for United States Citizenship and
Immigration Services at the department. “Every case is decided
individually based on the facts and the law.”

Problems emerged last summer when the British theater director Tim
Supple brought a pan-Arab ensemble to Toronto to perform the much-
acclaimed new version of the “One Thousand and One Nights,” a version
revised to reflect the events of the Arab Spring. The company had no
difficulty obtaining visas for Canada and Britain, but an engagement
at the Chicago Shakespeare Festival had to be canceled when 9 of the
troupe’s 40 members were subjected to the additional scrutiny and time
ran out.

“One has to respect everyone’s right to protect their own security,
but it’s a growing problem that needs to be addressed,” said Roy
Luxford, the show’s producer, based in Britain. “Everyone got Canadian
visas in two weeks and British visas in 8 to 10 days.

“It has become overly onerous and a real barrier to undertaking any
sort of normal tour” if you try to combine American dates with
appearances in other countries, Mr. Luxford continued. “If all the
rhetoric about open societies and cultural exchange is to be believed,
then the agencies involved in that process need to own up to that.”

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