Once again, a little unhealthy paranoia has ruined many lives...

[acroyear]

The insanely cumbersome process of entering America now goes something like this: first, the manager or producer or venue who wants to book a foreign artist must petition one of four USCIS service centres. They must prove the artist is unique, extraordinary or renowned, and that he or she intends to return to their home country after their work is done.

If the petition is accepted, it is then sent to the artist in their home country, and the artist in turn brings it to the US consulate, where he or she is fingerprinted and interviewed. After the interview, the waiting begins, as the consulate sends the application to the Department of Homeland Security and "all interested agencies". It may take seven weeks, it may take seven months, but - and here the Kafkaesque institutional absurdity really takes hold - the law says that visas can be applied for, at the earliest, only six months in advance. Waits of up to 10 months are not uncommon.

Nor are visa applications that are never returned. "A case can disappear into the ozone," says Ginsburg. The entire process normally runs from $2,000 to $4,000 per artist, depending on lawyers' fees, and that does not include travelling expenses to and from consulates. In Iran, there is no American consulate, so someone like Kiarostami must travel to Syria and back - twice.

-- source: The Guardian.

So this month and next, with all the Celtic musicians visiting from Ireland and Canada, be sure to thank them profusely and perhaps apologize to their managers for the amount of crap they had to go through to get them here.

And be sure to go and buy their merchandise like CDs and T-Shirts -- $2000 / person for a 7-person group like Dervish (playing next month at National Geographic) means the group itself is seeing next to no money at all for the gigs (which already pay too little as it is), so the only dime they might see are increased CD sales.

Comments

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

The employer pays for the VISA requests, so if you see a visiting artist at an establishment that sells food or drink, buy some of that as well.

The really nasty part of the whole thing is that 6 month request, variable wait time, but for only an extra $1000 or so, you can request an expedited application which is supposed to be responded to within 14 business days of receipt. I get to hear a lot about this due to hiring of grad students and researchers here (visa deadlines etc. go to all payroll people).