The current laws were enacted in 1992, when lawyers for the American Symphony Orchestra League, with the help of Jack Golodner (then-president of the AFL-CIO) and Senator Ted Kennedy (then, as now, on the Senate Immigration Subcommittee) worked for nine months to forge an appropriate political compromise that was palatable to labor, the arts, and the government.
Jonathan Ginsburg, one of the immigration lawyers involved in crafting the current law and co-author of a Web site dedicated to helping touring artists with visas (artistsfromabroad.org), said in a telephone interview from his office in Virginia, “The O and P classes have worked. The problem is that there are other elements in the system that have really broken down, that make life much more difficult.”
Today, applying for a non-immigrant work visa requires a dense alchemy of time, money, and bureaucracy — like getting a passport from the Stazi, or perhaps renewing your driver’s license in hell.
First, because labor was brought in on the initial compromise, all petitions must include a consultation with the appropriate American labor organization: musicians must consult with one group, technical and craft personnel must consult with another, etc. The labor group then responds with either a letter of objection or no-objection, which is merely advisory and has no official bearing on USCIS, but — regardless of the ruling — costs between $200 and $350 (with an extra $50 to $250 to get it within 48 hours).
Then, the musicians and their crew send in two separate I-129 forms, which cost $320 each. USCIS offers a service they’ve dubbed “Premium Processing,” which costs another $1000 for each form, and will guarantee visa processing within 15 days. Assuming the most current forms have been filled out correctly, none of the members of the band have criminal records, none have names similar to terrorists, they’ve sufficiently demonstrated international acclaim, proven they’ve been together for more than one year, have already booked tour dates, used a valid petitioner, and no wires got crossed, USCIS will at last send an approval notice.
Next comes the hard part: after (and only after) the approval notice has been received, each person who will come to America must schedule a meeting with his or her country’s US consulate, appointment waits for which can range anywhere from three to 45 days. Each individual must then pay his or her own way to travel to a certain US consulate at a certain time and date to be interviewed, fingerprinted, get the visa put into their passport, and pay another $131.
“Now think of [artists from] a country like Pakistan,” says Ginsburg. “You [may] have to go over a lot of mountains to get there, and we have few posts in many countries. So how much have you spent so far? Two petitions, two union costs, two $1000 fees, each person pays $131, and transportation to the consulate . . . you’re risking a whole lot of money up front for a process that may take too long for you to bother in the first place, even if you’re paying every dollar you have to get it fast.”
