The legality of restrictions on artist visas
By Tara Wasik
The United States is not new to the practice of allowing non-U.S. citizens to enter and perform concerts and other forms of music entertainment. The U.S. has hosted thousands of international performers, such as acclaimed artists like One Direction and BTS.
The artist visa allows these international artists to pay a fee and perform in the United States. There are different visa types depending on intent and status. The O-1 visa, also applicable to those in the fields of business, science, education, and athletics, is for individual artists who possess “extraordinary ability,” referring to high recognition and renown. The P-1 visa is administered to globally recognized entertainment groups, a process that contains less challenging criteria for an individual to meet. Instead, the group’s reputation must be internationally recognized. Next, P-2 visas are for artists who participate in a reciprocal program between an organization in the U.S. and another in a different country. Third, the P-3 visa applies to artists performing, teaching, or coaching under a culturally unique program. Prior approval of a petition from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is needed for the P-3 visa.
Lately, the U.S. immigration domain has faced changes that unavoidably impact these visas. Artist visas have recently become more difficult to obtain due to massive price increases and uncommonly lengthy delays. In April 2024, USCIS initiated a 250% increase in fees for P-1 visa applications and a 260% increase for O-1 visas. Before, it cost $460 for a visa application. Now, a single application for one person costs $1,615 to $1,655. A band of five members would expect to pay about $8,000. On top of that, any supporting staff members, from background singers to other employees, require visas too.
If a visa is not approved, the money then goes to waste because there are no refunds, so the move to drastically increase application fees specifically hurts smaller artists. Immigration attorney Gabriel Castro notes discrepancies in the current application process. Twenty years ago, an application was two to three pages, while it’s presently 15 or 20 pages.
Furthermore, each application, particularly the O-1 and the P-1 visas, require supplemental evidence to ascertain an artist’s “renown.” With a mixture of published press, recommendation letters from experts in the field (which is usually from more prominent artists), and awards, the government decides the approximate status of an applicant, In addition to requiring a beneficiary petitioner who is either a U.S. employer or agent. Castro says that supporting evidence can make an application jump to 200 to 300 pages.
Now, a year after the upsurge in fees, global artists and their immigration lawyers are not fans. Immigration attorney Matthew Covey details how this most affects developing world music artists, jazz performers, and indie bands, especially those “outside of Europe who have government support… if they come in from the Global South, they generally are not going to have a lot of government funding to cover these kinds of costs.”
Eric Shaub, a New-York based attorney who solely focuses on immigration for artists, outlines the trends of USCIS: “As recently as 2008 artists were free to prepare their own itineraries to demonstrate what they intended to do in the U.S. In 2009 USCIS made the determination that all events should be documented with contracts. Then in 2014 USCIS became much stricter regarding the evidence of an artist’s career.”
When reflecting on the first Trump administration, Covey states that delay times, errors, and overall scrutiny increased. After entering office in January 2025, President Trump enacted an array of executive orders for what the administration reports as “enhanced” vetting. Jen Jacobsen, the executive director of The Artist Rights Alliance, describes the trickle down effect of immigration policy, highlighting how the intense crack down on illegal immigration can unintentionally bleed into legal immigration. Some of Trump’s changes consist of halting the processing of migrants and asylum seekers and terminating CBP One, a smartphone app that allowed migrants to book appointments with U.S. border patrol agents. In January, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion claiming that the app’s erasure does not align with asylum law set forth by Congress. The downturn in the naturalization progress for migrants and asylum seekers affects the entire immigration landscape, which includes international artists.
The narrow trajectory of the state of artist visas is clear. The increased procedural resistance to obtaining an artist visa is a reflection of the current presidential administration’s aims of restricting immigration. On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order to “identify all resources that may be used to ensure that all aliens seeking admission to the United States, or who are already in the United States, are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”
Legal means to reverse this path are still unclear. Exploring whether there is a legal way to reverse this path has unclear beginnings.
Due to the disseminating nature of the administration’s immigration agenda and legal action, where musical artists stand is still up for debate. Performing music publicly is a part of one’s creative expression and freedom of speech, and looking into the constitutionality of these actions entails surveying the treatment of undocumented immigrants once more. Many parts of the Constitution use the words “person” or “people,” rather than “citizen.” That’s why the Constitution is interpreted to apply to undocumented immigrants. Yale Law professor Cristina Rodriguez clarifies that “most of the provisions of the Constitution apply on the basis of personhood and jurisdiction in the United States.” Therefore, freedom of speech can be exercised by everyone, regardless of citizenship status. And the restriction of visas may constitute a breach of these rights.
But it may not be that simple. When global artists are not in the U.S., they do not enjoy U.S. protections. Technically, non-U.S. musicians are not being restricted from entering the country, even though many artists have had to cancel shows and entire tours due to an unresponsively long wait time for visas. Artists are stuck in limbo when they are not technically rejected from entering the country. Musicians like the K-Pop group KARD and Canadian band Respire have admitted to canceling U.S. tours due to visa hardships.
Regarding more restrictions to free speech, Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest, one of many instances where a green card holder and permanent resident arguably faced legal consequences for expressing contentious political views, has sparked much discourse. Will Creeley, the legal director for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said he believed the Trump administration’s “clear motivation here is to chill speech… simply saying someone is aligned to a terrorist organization does not exempt them from First Amendment protection.” Although this is a vastly different situation, many advocates assert similar sentiments that the Trump administration does not readily afford free speech to non-citizens.
Both sides of immigration, from illegal to legal, operate within the same spheres of political and social influence. While stakeholders, like international artists and their teams, lawyers, venue operators, and more, deal with the ramifications of extensive crackdowns on immigration, there may not currently be a straightforward legal solution.
