Strict Visa Regulations Discourage Visiting Artists

[babylonsister]

Next! Say good-bye to culture. Let's keep everyone dumbed down and ignorant of what other people and cultures have to offer. Feeling safer yet?


Strict Visa Regulations Discourage Visiting Artists
Post-9/11 Process Adds Costs and Red Tape

By Sarah Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 20, 2007; Page A01

The Halle Orchestra, one of Great Britain's oldest symphony orchestras, has not toured the United States in more than a decade, so spirits were high when the group secured dates at Lincoln Center and in Upstate New York for performances last winter.

But when the orchestra learned that to get their entry visas, all 85 musicians -- every last cellist, oboist and piccolo player -- would have to travel from their Manchester headquarters to the U.S. Embassy in London for personal interviews, electronic fingerprinting and facial-recognition scans, it scrapped the trip. Budgeting for airfare and travel costs to New York was one thing, but simply getting everyone to the embassy at the same time, along with hotel bills and fees for the visas themselves, would have cost an additional $80,000, said marketing director Andy Ryans.

"It was very simply money that we didn't have," Ryans explained. "We were desperate to go to the States, but our hands were absolutely tied."

Theirs aren't the only ones. To perform in this country, foreign artists of all stripes -- punk rockers, ballet dancers, folk musicians, acrobats -- are funneled through a one-size-fits-all "nonimmigrant" visa process whose costs and complications have become prohibitive, according to booking agents, managers and presenters, such as the Kennedy Center, who program and market the performers. Visiting businesspeople face similar security hurdles put in place since Sept. 11, 2001. But artists' visa petitions also require substantial documentation to satisfy the "sustained international recognition" requirement for the type of visa (called a "P-1") issued to many performing artists.

Arts organizations say they have become reluctant to book foreign performers because of the risk of bureaucratic snags. Advocates are lobbying Congress to pass a bill, called the ARTS Act (for "Arts Require Timely Service"), that would fast-track artists' visa petitions.

"It's become kind of a nightmare to continue in the international business," said Jeff Laramie, whose Middleton, Wis.-based SRO Artists Inc. watched a three-week, $250,000 tour by the Peking Opera of Jilin -- a troupe it had brought over in the past -- dissolve in 2003 when the company's visas were denied.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/19/AR2007101902544.html?hpid=topnews

[Selatius]

1. Pretty soon no one will want to come to the United States, and for more than just that reason.

If we go ahead and make war with Iran, I can guarantee you people in Europe will look at the US the same way they looked at Nazi Germany, just another horrible, brutal regime bent on world domination.

[Speck Tater]

2. So the U.S. is putting up it's own version of the "Iron Curtain"...

the "Paperwork Curtain".

[High Plains]

3. America, the land of scared shitless idiots.

It makes me embarrassed to be an American anymore.

[NYC]

4. An additional $80,000.

...Budgeting for airfare and travel costs to New York was one thing, but simply getting everyone to the embassy at the same time, along with hotel bills and fees for the visas themselves, would have cost an additional $80,000...

I doubt the money would deter a terra-ist, so I see a plan here:

Keep out all the good people, and the only people who will be willing and financially able to enter the U.S. will be terra-ists.

???

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. "Land of the Free and Home of the Brave" Yeah, right.

[mvccd1000]

6. I tried to get a visa for my friend in Thailand, but...

... she had just sold her house, and the embassy said she no longer had ties to Thailand, so it was not likely that she would return from the States. They denied her visa. :(