[Dixielandjazz] US Visa Rules for Foreign Performers

[Ulf Jagfors]

How Steve?
 
No chance there will be any changes in near future. Security goes first if
you now can specify what security is. Mexican border perhaps??
Sooner or later there will be counter reactions from countries outside US.
So Dolly, Woody and Bruce and all other may have to stay at home if this
will go on for long.

When I brought up this issue last year no one seems to be interested on this
list except for a few persons. I would also again point out  that this also
concerns alien amateur musicians (and all other types of public appearances)
who for instance travel to New Orleans and play on any public bar or any
public event were any kind of fees are involved. It does not matter if you
are paid or not. If you do a public appearance on a Tourist Visa you risk to
be thrown out of the country, heavily fined or minimum be denied a new visa
next time you apply for it. Remember that the Home land Security now a days
have pretty good control of what happened on the social medias like Twitter
and Facebook. That according to a new law from 2010. The ironic part in this
totally screwed situation, for us living outside US, is that on the
Immigration authorities home page there is an official statement that all
officers should do their outmost to ease cultural exchange?? 

I have for myself decided to stop all future travelling to US were any kind
of live playing of music is involved. Where is the new open world of
tolerance and understanding??

And we should not talk about entering with instruments made of wood and bone
material. But that is another sad story were nothing happened in spite of a
pending relief act for temporary visits stalled in the political pipe lines.


A very disillusioned banjo picker in Sweden but I am very happy to live in
Europe.

Ulf Jagfors
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-----Ursprungligt meddelande-----
Från: dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com
[mailto:dixielandjazz-bounces at ml.islandnet.com] För Stephen G Barbone
Skickat: den 11 april 2012 19:37
Till: Ulf Jagfors
Kopia: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List
Ämne: [Dixielandjazz] US Visa Rules for Foreign Performers

This situation needs to be fixed.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

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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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