Tamizdat Brief: Major New Problems With U.S. Artist Visas
Dear Colleagues,
We write you with an update on recent changes at USCIS that have significantly impacted processing times. For the full story, read on, and see our TLDR summary below:
TLDR version: USCIS claimed that their recent fee hikes would ensure timely and consistent processing of O and P artist visa petitions. Unfortunately, recent changes at USCIS have made it now practically impossible to predict whether or not it will be necessary to pay the $2805 Premium Processing expediting fee to ensure that a petition will be approved in time.
In the last year we have seen significant increases in the fees USCIS charges to process O and P visa petitions for touring artists—increases that we were told would help ensure efficient processing. And when USCIS announced that going forward all petitions would be filed with a service center in Texas, we were told that this would facilitate more timely and reliable adjudication. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the processing times of O and P petitions are now less consistent than at any time since the creation of the O and P visa classifications in 1990. If not addressed, the current processing policy will make it massively harder to tour international artists in the U.S.
This is what has happened: USCIS has two service centers that adjudicate O and P artist visa petitions, one in Vermont and one in California. Roughly speaking, petitioners in the eastern half of the U.S. filed in Vermont, while petitioners in the western half of the U.S. filed in California. However, in December USCIS required that all petitions be filed with their Texas Service Center, and starting in May, they began to randomly divvy up all cases between the California and Vermont service centers. The impact of this change is that the processing times at both Services Centers has become wildly irregular.
Vermont is processing most O and P petitions in 8-10 weeks, on average, but some are taking more than 12. Meanwhile, California is processing so slowly that we don’t even know how slowly, because every case we know of that has been filed since May is still pending or has had to be upgraded to Premium Processing (P-3 petitions are a notable exception and have been processing fairly quickly). By their own estimation, California is currently taking 5-6 months. The mind-boggling effect of this new policy is that when you file a petition it might go to Vermont and might be processed in a month or two, or it might go to California, and in all likelihood you will be forced to pay an additional $2805 to ensure processing within any reasonable timeframe. This means that when an artist is considering touring in the U.S., almost regardless of when they start the visa process, they will need to budget an extra $2805 for Premium Processing. This is effectively the most significant increase in the budget required for U.S. visas in 34 years, and a massive blow to any U.S. organization that works with international artists.
At the present time, Tamizdat, in collaboration with the the League of American Orchestras and the Performing Arts Visa Working Group, has contacted USCIS in an effort to ascertain how aware they are of the scope of the problem they have created. At the same time, U.S. stakeholders and advocacy groups are evaluating strategies for effecting change, including working through congressional offices, supportive agencies, and legal action. We have nothing positive to report at the present time, but we will keep you posted as we make plans for combating these new, devastating barriers to international artist mobility to the U.S.
Matthew Covey
Executive Director
Pronouns: he/him/his