Posted on 04/05/2006 10:00:01 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON -- Post-9/11 security rules aimed at stopping terrorists from entering America are keeping artists, musicians and others out as well, renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma told a congressional committee Tuesday.
With a growing number of foreign artists canceling their U.S. performances -- last week Britain's Halle Orchestra called off its American tour citing prohibitive visa fees and requirements -- Ma said America is in danger of losing meaningful cultural exchanges.
"Bringing foreign musicians to this country and sending our performers to visit them is crucial," Ma, a U.S. citizen born in France to Chinese parents, told the House Government Reform Committee.
"(But) the high cost and lengthy timeline make these programs difficult to execute," he said.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visitors from Mexico City can expect to wait more than four months to get a consulate interview for a temporary business visa. Visitors from throughout India face waits as long as 100 to 160 days.
The delays in large part are the result of requirements Congress imposed upon the State Department after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Directives now include that every visa applicant to the U.S. be interviewed in person, and that biometric data such as fingerprints be collected.
But spurred by the Chamber of Commerce and a range of worried corporate leaders, lawmakers are seeking to relax some of those requirements.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista, said delays in processing business visas have significant implications for the California economy.
"Obviously, we're an entertainment capital. But we're also the high-tech capital of the world, and it has been an incredible challenge for our companies," he said.
The push to loosen rules for business visitors and some other foreign visitors comes as Congress continues to rage over illegal immigration. Immigration officials estimate at least a third of the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants overstayed their visas.
Issa on Tuesday said those figures are irrelevant and he accused the State Department of excessively denying visas to people from poorer countries, presumably based on an assumption that they are at higher risk of overstaying their visas.
Nationwide, executives said they fear the hurdles are fostering a poor image of the United States even as they damage industries' bottom lines.
Dennis Slater, president of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, said he expected a delegation of about 40 people from India to attend an agriculture equipment trade show in Las Vegas last year.
When nearly half were denied visas and received poor treatment from the U.S. consulate, Slater said, another 12 canceled their visa appointments in solidarity.
The group attended a competing European trade show instead, he said.
Ma, who brings foreign musicians to the U.S. as part of his Silk Road project, said two Iranian performers he invited had to wait three months and spend $5,000 to get their visas.
With no U.S. embassy in Iran, he noted, both were forced to fly to Dubai first for an interview and later to pick up the visas. Last year, when the printer at the consulate was broken, they were forced to leave empty-handed and return to Dubai a third time.
Sandra Gibson, president of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, cited a new field study showing the number of organizations hosting foreign artists has dropped from 75 percent to 60 percent since 2002.
She called the figure alarming, and said the anecdotal stories are equally troubling.
The Halle Orchestra, which last toured America in 1994 and performed at the Hollywood Bowl, this year discovered that each of their 100 performers would have to travel from Manchester about 185 miles to London for interviews.
Travel costs plus the new fingerprinting and other fees would have cost nearly $80,000, she said, so they canceled.
U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services called the personal interviews "an incredibly useful security tool" in weeding out those who wish to do harm to the U.S.
But, he acknowledged, the requirement as well as the need to collect biometrics is burdensome to applicants, and said the State Department would welcome the ability to be more flexible.
geeze...tell em to just fly into Tijuana and walk on it.
Every artist on earth could drop dead tomorrow and it wouldn't matter one bit.
Way to be reasonable.
Hell my wife has been waiting on her papers to go through for over a year.
All the legislation passed after 9/11 did was make things more difficult for law abiding citizens. The government has grown in all the wrong places.
Musicians have always been suspect, along with mountebanks, charlatans, jugglers, magicians, and traveling theater companies.
I was responding in kind to comments such as "America is in danger" and words like "crucial" and "critical" being used to describe the liberal past time known as "artistry".
If only they could keep Yanni and John Tesh out of the country.
How is art exclusively liberal? That statement is just absurd.
Musicians and artists are hardly in short supply.
Why didn't this yoyo change his first name to something sensible? He doesn't live in China
Who really gives a rats ass?
It would be a pretty damn expensive bomb. I think Yo Yo Ma plays a Guarneri.
Artists! We don't need no steenking artists!
The DHS clerk had trouble with the visa application because he can read only Spanish.
"Every artist on earth could drop dead tomorrow and it wouldn't matter one bit."
You left "to me" off the end of your sentence, there. Have you ever heard Yo Yo Ma play? I have, and it was a great experience for me.
I've also heard an excellent chamber orchestra from the Czech republic play some really obscure Italian baroque music. I would never have heard that if they hadn't come here and played a concert.
Speak for yourself, please.
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