US Artist Mobility Update: Visa Delays, Rule Changes, Travel Restrictions and Chilling Effects
Dear Tamizdat Community,
Tamizdat continuously monitors policy shifts, political memos, and real-time immigration issues facing the performing arts community. This update aims to provide on-the-ground insights regarding the real impact of things you have been seeing in the news, and to offer updates on issues that are directly affecting the performing arts sector. Last week’s elections give us hope that we may soon see shifts in immigration policy and practice, but for now…
CONTINUED PETITION PROCESSING DELAYS
What is happening? As many of you already know, USCIS handles the “petition” part of the US artist visa process. Historically, processing times average from 3-12 weeks, but for the last two years, they have increased dramatically, so that regular processing routinely takes more than a year. Additionally, over the last six months, we have seen USCIS’s Premium Processing service occasionally fail to meet its own guaranteed 15 business day deadline. These failures are uncommon—representing less than 5% of petitions filed.
In practice, because petitions cannot be filed more than 12 months before an individual’s requested visa start date, this processing delay effectively makes regular processing impossible (without the processing time eating into the visa validity period) and premium processing mandatory—along with the $2,965 fee that this service costs. Meanwhile, although the incidents of USCIS failing to comply with its own premium processing timeline are rare, they do add a level of uncertainty and chaos to the process, which is a significant hardship for the international performing arts community.
What Tamizdat is doing: In late July, a bipartisan House letter of concern, led by Representatives Teresa Leger-Fernandez (D-NM) and Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), was delivered to USCIS Director Joseph B. Edlow, expressing concern over the extreme delays. The letter is a clear and urgent articulation of the impact these delays are having on the performing arts sector. This letter came about after substantial grassroots pressure, initiated in part by Tamizdat, the League of American Orchestras, and our colleagues across the US performing arts community. Edlow’s response was somewhat informative, but did not provide any assurance of imminent resolution to this crisis.
DECREASED RESPONSE TIME IMPOSED FOR USCIS’s REQUESTS FOR EVIDENCE
What is happening? On August 5, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released Policy Alert PA-2026-05, authorizing USCIS officers to issue RFEs that require petitioners to respond in a timeframe of less than 12 weeks, contrary to DHS’s prior policy. The Policy Alert also announced that officers may deny petitions without issuing a Request for Evidence (“RFE”) or a Notice of Intent to Deny (“NOID”). Fortunately, in practice, we have not seen USCIS officers denying petitions without a prior RFE.
In practice, we are now seeing that all RFEs are demanding a response from the petitioner in 30 days. This reduction of the allowed time given to the petitioner is a significant problem for the performing arts sector; RFEs are often delivered by post, and consequently the number of working days left for the petitioner to respond to USCIS is unrealistically short. This is especially true given the amount of work required to respond to increasingly burdensome RFEs.
What Tamizdat is doing: Tamizdat, in cooperation with the League of American Orchestras and other organizations in the performing arts field, is communicating its concern about this new policy to USCIS through available channels. Unfortunately, we do not anticipate the policy to be revised any time soon.
CHANGE IN THE PUBLIC CHARGE RULE
What has happened? In July, DHS released a new final rule that grants broader discretion to individual immigration officers to determine whether a person traveling to the US may be deemed a “public charge.” The rule provides a more expansive interpretation of the “public charge” grounds of inadmissibility, allowing officers to deny artists entry to the US based on the real or perceived possibility that the individual may utilize public benefits.
In practice, While this policy has broadly been applied to those interviewing for immigrant visas (for lawful permanent residence in the US), we have not yet seen this have a direct impact on performing arts visas.
What Tamizdat is doing: We align with The American Association of People with Disabilities and the Migration Policy Institute in their recognition that this rule will have a damaging and chilling effect on immigrants and immigrant communities. We continue to watch for manifestations of this rule change and keep our performing arts community apprised through our regular briefings.
REGARDING MARCO RUBIO’S PRESS RELEASE SUGGESTING THAT NEW VISA RESTRICTIONS TARGET “FAR LEFT TERRORISM”
What has happened? Earlier this year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio released a press statement entitled, “Visa Restriction Policy Targeting Far-Left Terrorists and Other Aligned Groups,” describing policies intended to designate a broad swath of free speech activities as criminal and grounds for denying visas. The suggested policy would very likely have a significant negative impact on artists touring and working in the United States.
In practice, although Tamizdat is closely monitoring trends in visa adjudication, we have not identified clear patterns that suggest these policies are being implemented, or that there has been any related shift in the visa process for artists resulting from this memo.
What Tamizdat is doing: Tamizdat recognizes the chilling effect that language like this can have on our communities. This press release represents further efforts to introduce a powerful chilling effect on our communities and discourage free speech in our country. Tamizdat will continue to monitor this situation to identify changes to visa processing or adjudication.
TRAVEL BAN AND RESTRICTIONS CONTINUE TO IMPACT ARTISTS FROM NUMEROUS COUNTRIES.
For more information about the evolving impact of the US government’s travel restrictions, please refer to our US Travel Restrictions Advisory.