Foreign artists kept out of USA

I'm not sure I sympathize for them as opposed to the rest of us.

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According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visitors from Mexico City can expect to wait more than four months to get a consulate interview for a temporary business visa. Visitors from throughout India face waits as long as 100 to 160 days.
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Dennis Slater, president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, said he expected a delegation of about 40 people from India to attend an agriculture equipment trade show in Las Vegas last year.

When nearly half were denied visas and received poor treatment from the U.S. consulate, Slater said, another 12 canceled their visa appointments in solidarity.

The group attended a competing European trade show instead, he said.

Ma, who brings foreign musicians to the U.S. as part of his Silk Road project, said two Iranian performers he invited had to wait three months and spend $5,000 to get their visas.

With no U.S. embassy in Iran, he noted, both were forced to fly to Dubai first for an interview and later to pick up the visas. Last year, when the printer at the consulate was broken, they were forced to leave empty-handed and return to Dubai a third time.

Sandra Gibson, president of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, cited a new field study showing the number of organizations hosting foreign artists has dropped from 75 percent to 60 percent since 2002.

She called the figure alarming, and said the anecdotal stories are equally troubling.

The Halle Orchestra, which last toured America in 1994 and performed at the Hollywood Bowl, this year discovered that each of their 100 performers would have to travel from Manchester about 185 miles to London for interviews.

Travel costs plus the new fingerprinting and other fees would have cost nearly $80,000, she said, so they canceled.

U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services called the personal interviews "an incredibly useful security tool" in weeding out those who wish to do harm to the U.S.

But, he acknowledged, the requirement as well as the need to collect biometrics is burdensome to applicants, and said the State Department would welcome the ability to be more flexible.