As someone who's had several of these artist visas in the past... especially when you're a small band with limited budget and need to get several of these - this is going to be cost-prohibitive for a lot of smaller artists.
FWIW, a lot of countries, including Canada / Australia etc allow artists who perform under a normal tourist visa which is essentially easy and free for much of the Western world. It always amazes me that I can perform in Canada by just flying over but I need to spend $1000+, hand in my passport for a week, go for an interview and wait several months just to do one show in the US.
To be fair. Canada is stringent about Americans coming over the border and teaching anything, even in a non-professional capacity, without a work visa.
I drove into Canada with a friend a few years ago. The border agent asked if we had any guns with us; fair, I expect that. I expected she would then ask to search our car, but she didn't. Instead we started getting grilled about which guns we owned at home, how long we owned them, why we owned them. I owned none so my answers were easy but she was asking very pointed questions to my friend who felt compelled to be honest by a suspicious that she had access to some databases and would know if he was lying. After about 30 minutes of this we were allowed to enter, without the car being searched. Utterly bizarre. My best guess is she just felt like harassing somebody.
We got extorted out of $300 to cross the border for three days over a just barely over the limit DUI my wife had something like 10 years ago. Funny thing is, neither of us drink now and wouldn’t be driving anyhow, so it would have been impossible for us to drive drunk. Victoria was nice but we won’t be back.
European lad who've traveled to the various places in US and Canada for both business and leisure. Customs officers were never rude or similar to me in Canada, but Miami airport (KMIA) probably had the worst customer facing employees I've ever encountered in an airport, loud, rude and unhelpful. Asked for directions and got told I should learn how to search for information myself...
Miami is something else. I had an officer threaten to deport me because I answered his question "do you have alcohol with you?" with "no, but I have some in my check-in luggage", which was apparently a great show of disrespect. The actual dictatorships and enemy countries I've been to had friendlier welcomes. Baffling.
They have to be to preserve their culture. The us population vastly outnumbers them and most of populated Canada is within a couple hours drive from the US. If there wasn't a strong border they'd end up being assimilated quickly.
That's the theory yet we had so much immigration that the pro unfettered immigration prime minister¹ was forced to acknowledge that is a significant factor in the current housing crisis afflicting Canada. The federal accept immigrants faster than the GDP can raise, so the GDP per capita of Canada has shrunk². Yet the immigration minister is on record saying that the solution to temporary immigrants overstaying their visa is to make them permanent residents³.
1- He is a member of the https://centuryinitiative.ca , a group that want to see Canada having a population of 100 millions in 2100. And the only way it's possible is by having unsustainable immigration.
At a 1.5% fertility rate [0], what's the alternative?
It's fair to gripe about the effects of immigration, and policies to handle those, but it's disingenuous to gripe about immigration as a policy in a <2+ country.
Demographics is a zero sum game. Either you have a growing population and smooth age brackets or Very Bad Things happen.
>They have to be to preserve their culture. The us population vastly outnumbers them and most of populated Canada is within a couple hours drive from the US. If there wasn't a strong border they'd end up being assimilated quickly.
You seem to be under the impression that hordes of Americans are gathered at the 49th parallel slavering to rush into Canada, and that only Canadian border patrol is preventing Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver from being overrun by Americans. Quite the opposite.
As frustrating as the US visa system is, large numbers of people are still applying for visas which is funding USCIS. Until either the numbers drop, or congress changes how USCIS is funded, I unfortunately think this is not going to change.
I don't think this is quite what's happening here. Overall USCIS is funded by fees, but operates a system in which some kinds of applicants subsidize other kinds of applicants. So, applications for asylum are free to make even though they cost USCIS a lot to adjudicate. To make up for this, USCIS charges extra for applications in other categories, like employment-based visas.
I'm not sure what exactly is happening in this case, but by saying "Because the US can’t seem to get a handle on its borders" the article author seems to be claiming that artist visa fees are subsidizing asylum claim applications.
FWIW, a lot of countries, including Canada / Australia etc allow artists who perform under a normal tourist visa which is essentially easy and free for much of the Western world. It always amazes me that I can perform in Canada by just flying over but I need to spend $1000+, hand in my passport for a week, go for an interview and wait several months just to do one show in the US.