Foreign Artists Need Not Apply

The relationship between foreign artists and a foreign country is advantageous to both parties. For artists of all levels and genres, the United States offers many opportunities to perform and present works in all parts of the country: at venues, festivals, fairs, conferences and conventions. The U.S. is a huge market for the arts and an important place to go to reach a broad audience and increase one’s prominence. Additionally, the country’s arts sector offers excellent technical performance conditions, networking opportunities and managerial creativity. At the same time, the sector benefits from the artistic input of the guest artists, both in terms of content and finance. 

 

 

The American performing arts world is currently unavailable to foreign artists because of COVID-19 restrictions. Certain U.S. embassies and consulates are gradually resuming routine non-immigrant visa services in a phased-in approach, with timelines dependent on local country conditions related to COVID-19. Consular operations will depend upon changing country conditions. 

 

At any rate, U.S. Consulates are currently not approving O-1 visa petitions to anyone who has been resident for 14 days or longer before their intended date of entry into the United States in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City and Wales. These travel restrictions will remain in effect until terminated by President Trump. Even should an artist manage to obtain an O or P visa to work in the United States, it is almost impossible to obtain an entry visa under current conditions. 

 

Foreign artists are currently being advised to travel to a country which is not travel-banned by the United States if at all possible, attend at a U.S. Consulate in that country for their visa and then continue on to the U.S. Unfortunately, all countries have their own entry and quarantine restrictions, and these may either prevent entry or result in being quarantined in that country for a certain period of time. 

 

 

Unfortunately, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has enacted regulations which will make it difficult and much more expensive for foreign artists to come to the U.S. in the future. In addition, to add insult to injury, as of October 2, the cost of USCIS petitions for foreign artists was to increase to USD 695 for P visas and USD 705 for O visas, with a cap of 25 beneficiaries per petition and the processing time for premium processing to be 15 business, not calendar days. These proposed increases have been put on hold due to a court decision in California but will likely take effect in the near future. In further news, USCIS has increased the premium processing fee from USD 1440 to USD 2500. These changes mean that for larger ensembles, more than one petition may be required, adding to their costs, and, of course, additional expense for everyone applying with the increase in fees. 

 

 

For artists currently in America, both native and foreign, the possibilities for performance are still there, albeit on a much-reduced basis. Gatherings of people are restricted to a small percentage of a venue’s capacity and many alternatives to traditional concerts are being attempted in order to keep the arts alive. One such alternative is a growing proliferation of outdoor or drive-in events where the audience remains ensconced in vehicles while the performers are on stages at a distance, augmented by video screens which broadcast the performance. The performers are, however, not foreign artists and not even artists outside of the local area in the main. Travel within the United States has become as much of a hindrance to performers as it has for foreign artists trying to travel to the United States. 

 

 

It is difficult to say how many artists are affected by the current restrictions since the U.S. Government supplies data on all classes of the visa types O (for talented foreigners to work in the U.S. with a U.S. company or organization) and P (for athletes, entertainers or artists who would like to work in the USA for a terminated time, e.g. in the context of a competition, performance or exhibition) under one heading. In 2019, the number of non-immigrant O and P visas totalled 68,788 or roughly 5,732 per month (including all classes of applicants, not just artists). This number nosedived for the 5-month period from April to August of 2020 to just 714 visas or roughly 143 per month, a reduction of almost 100%. 

 

 In contrast to the above measures which seem to have been enacted to prevent foreign artists from touring in America, the months of June, July and August saw a minor upsurge in visas issued. That could bode well for the future for foreign artists coming into the United States, depending on the development of the next weeks and months. Thus, the country is in the process of re-opening. 

 

Returning society to a semblance of normality in the face of COVID-19 appears to be a multi-phase operation. The first phase involved a virtual lockdown with people being urged to stay home to stay safe and only essential elements and personnel allowed to operate to deal with maintaining the basic necessities of life and fighting the virus in hospitals and long-term care centers. 

 

Phase 2, which has just begun, is the gradual reopening of non-essential sectors such as retail, restaurants, hair salons, etc. But, while parts of the world are starting to relax restrictions, social distancing and masks are more and more appearing to be the norm and are, in some areas, mandatory. The re-opening of society must proceed slowly and there will be increased vigilance to identify and counter increased instances of COVID-19. There may be performing arts venues and festivals which can re-open while respecting social distancing and all of the other measures required for safety but many will not be able to and will have to survive until Phase 4. 

 

Phase 3 will be facing the reality of society re-aligning itself to the new norms and there will be many organizations and entities that will simply not survive. We will reach the end of Phase 3 when there is a viable vaccine available on a worldwide basis. The final Phase 4 will be a return (sort of) to the world as we knew it before the pandemic but with many missing pieces and a need to accommodate ourselves to a new world where much of we what we knew and loved will be quite different. The performing arts will only be able to function fully in this final phase. Currently, much of America is in Phase 3, but new outbreaks of COVID-19 in certain areas have necessitated a return to Phase 1.

 

 

Suffice it to say that, until there is an effective vaccine developed, the performing arts world in America will be severely hamstrung, awaiting the day when public gatherings are again possible with no safety or health concerns as far as the pandemic is concerned. And foreign artists will be unable to be part of that world for some time to come.