Why is the U.S. punishing foreign musicians with higher visa fees? This is going to hurt

Foreign artists who want to tour America, need a visa. Those visas could soon be prohibitively expensive for many musicians — as if they don't already have enough to worry about.

Back in the fall of 2020, when COVID-19 shut down the live music industry, the United States Department of Homeland Security quietly proposed increases in the cost of visas necessary for foreign musicians who want to tour America.

The new asking price of a “P-3″ visa, the one needed by musicians who want to play live in America, would rise to US$690 from US$460, a jump of 67 per cent. Another document, the four flavours of the “O” visa (required by people with “extraordinary ability or achievement” or accompanying people/relatives of such people) also had a proposed increase.

These proposals landed at a time when no one was on the road, so the timing suggests that the U.S. wanted the new fees to slip under the radar. Those who noticed expressed concern about the increased financial burden on any non-American act. There was some initial chatter about the situation, but with months of COVID lockdowns ahead, no one paid too much attention and the increases were never put into place.

But then earlier this year, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USIC) tried again. This time, the all-important “P” visa would jump to US$1,615 from US$460. That’s a bump of 250 per cent. Let’s break this down:

Assuming a four-piece band, their road crew, a manager, and one boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, that’s US$3,420 (nearly $4,600 Canadian) before you even get to the border — actually, you have to apply at least three months before you leave home. Sure, you can have your petition expedited and pushed through within five days or so, but that’s another US$1,440 (or roughly C$1,935). That means a grand total of C$6,535 before the band sees a dime from the tour. This, of course, is in addition to transportation, fuel, salaries, hotel rooms, and food.

Those costs have also gone up, of course. With so much touring activity going on the cost of renting gear, trucks, and buses has skyrocketed. And because so many roadies left the business during COVID-19, their kind of labour and expertise is in short supply and costs more.

Homeland Security/USIC say that the increases in visa fees are necessary because they haven’t increased since 2016 when P visas went up to the current US$460 from around US$275, a bump of 42 per cent. That raised some red flags at the time, but for the most part, this became a normal cost of doing business.

So why just a hike now? The revenue from new ultra-high fees will be applied (at least partly) to hiring more people to deal with the post-COVID backlog of requests for visas. Some of the money will also help pay for some U.S. asylum programs. In other words, the U.S. government is making foreign acts pay for its inability to get its bureaucratic act together when it comes to its borders.