After planning a series of U.S. concerts celebrating Czech and Slavic heritage, Jaroslav Škuta, a Prague-based clarinetist, landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport last summer expecting to continue west for his first performance in Wilber, Neb.
Instead, U.S. immigration officers questioned his reasons for travel and rejected his tourism visa waiver, which he said he had previously used to enter the U.S. He said his phone was confiscated, his luggage was searched — including his clarinet case — and that he was detained for six hours.
By the end of the interrogation, he was denied entry and returned to Prague on the next available flight, canceling his scheduled performances in Nebraska and Ohio with several cultural organizations, including the Czech Culture and Education Foundation of Nebraska.
Škuta described the experience as both humiliating and traumatic.
“I was feeling so ashamed. I was publicly treated like a criminal,” he told Iowa Public Radio and the Midwest Newsroom in an email.
In a statement, Customs and Border Protection officials said that “performing in the U.S. constitutes work,” and requires an employment-based visa that Škuta did not have.
While Škuta was scheduled to perform for free, any public performance in the United States can be classified as work under U.S. immigration law, especially if the musician is considered a professional, like Škuta, regardless of whether payment is involved. The Czech Culture and Education Foundation of Nebraska also shared that it had arranged travel reimbursements for Škuta, which can be considered a form of compensation.
In an email later shared with concert organizers, Škuta said he hoped to return to the U.S. “when the climate becomes more welcoming to international artists and cultural exchange.”
Škuta’s experience comes amid heightened, stricter immigration enforcement and changing travel policies under the Trump administration. Arts organizers across the Midwest have said that cases like Škuta’s, as well as other challenges, including long visa processing delays and mounting visa fees and travel costs, are making it harder for international artists to participate in short-term U.S. engagements, and increasingly determining whether international artists perform in the U.S. at all.
For Midwestern presenters, especially in rural communities, the result can mean lost revenue and fewer opportunities for cultural exchange.
To perform or share their art legally in the U.S., international artists must apply for specialized visas, most commonly the P-3 visa for culturally unique groups, or the O-1 visa for individuals with extraordinary ability.
In recent months, an Austrian guitarist canceled his entire U.S. tour, including a stop in Missouri, citing the country’s “social and political climate” and the rising costs of visa processing. In Iowa, a mural commissioned from a Colombian artist had to be creatively constructed and unveiled without her after she was denied entry into the U.S.
Midwestern presenters feel the effects
For Midwestern organizations that regularly present international artists, last-minute cancellations can unravel months of planning.
“There have been a number of artists that have canceled, decided not to tour,” said Mateo Mulcahy, deputy executive director of the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago, which saw two international artists cancel appearances last fall. “We have other artists who tried to tour and weren’t given visas in time.”
The cancellations are happening as many venues face declining attendance and tighter budgets, exacerbated by cuts to federal arts funding that have helped nonprofits like the Latino Cultural Center support international acts in the past.
Mulcahy said fewer people are coming out to performances in general, shrinking a key source of revenue and making it difficult to make viable offers to artists who also face ballooning visa costs.
When an artist cancels close to a performance date, the impact extends beyond the venue itself, according to Jennifer Roe, executive director of Folk Alliance International in Kansas City.
“Not only is that venue losing out on ticket revenue — and that artist is losing out on their income as well — but the restaurants in the neighborhood that those folks would have eaten at beforehand probably won’t have the same amount of business as they had because that venue is not performing,” she said.
Despite the hurdles, international artists big and small continue to see the U.S. as a valuable destination.
“U.S. audiences are very warm and expressive,” said Danielle Devlin, a booking agent who represents 25 international artists. “There’s that real exchange of energy that artists talk about with live performance.”
But those benefits are being increasingly weighed against the risks. Roe said she is hearing from more artists who are choosing to tour in other major markets, like Europe.
For presenters who showcase the artists, that shift threatens the diversity of their programming.
“Seasons are going to be shorter, or there’s going to be fewer artists,” Mulcahy said. “You can rely on local and regional and national artists, but you’re not getting the diversity. You’re not going to be debuting as many artists.”
Fear at the border
IPR and the Midwest Newsroom spoke with multiple international artists who said they have endured harassment at the border, or feared it. Several requested not to be named or excluded entirely from this story due to concerns that speaking out about their experiences would affect future visa applications.
Mulcahy said he has spoken directly with artists who are reconsidering tours because of what they expect to face when they enter the U.S.
“If you’re going to tour in another country and you get hassled to no end upon entry, that doesn’t make you feel very welcome,” he said.
Presenters and tour managers echoed their concerns.
“I know a lot of artists are fearful of coming into the U.S.,” said Roe, who regularly organizes and speaks at global conferences discussing and celebrating international artistry. “They’re hearing stories of being asked random questions at the border and being sent home because they didn’t answer something correctly.”
In many cases, Roe said, artists who are turned away are denied entry because of technical issues, like errors in documentation or a missed detail in the application process.
“Most of the time when someone’s been turned away, it’s because they didn’t dot all their i’s or cross their t’s, or they overstayed a visa the last time,” she said. “But even though that may be the truth, people have a legitimate fear of coming into this country.”
Paying more, waiting longer
For an artist from another country to perform in the U.S., a U.S. sponsor, typically a manager, employer or the presenter themselves, must first file a petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, supported by extensive documentation, like contracts, itineraries, press coverage, testimonial letters and evidence of cultural significance or acclaim, like awards or even a large social media following.
Once a petition is approved, most artists must then complete a visa interview at a U.S. consulate.
Petition processing has been delayed significantly, and increasingly, over the years, due to a combination of factors, including changes implemented by the U.S. to tighten restrictions and enhance the review process. As of Feb. 1, a P visa generally takes nine months to process, and an O visa nine-and-a-half months, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
While petitions can be filed up to a year in advance, many artists, particularly small artists performing at small venues, don’t have confirmed bookings that far out, even though that documentation can help strengthen an application. As a result, pressure grows to pay for Premium Processing, which guarantees a response within 15 business days at a cost of $2,805 per petition (the cost for expedited processing of Form I-129 petitions will increase to $2,965 on March 1), on top of existing fees.
Even if the petition is approved, each artist must still obtain an individual visa passport stamp for entry. Mulcahy described one case in which a tour manager from Spain paid for expedited processing for her P-3 visa petition and the dance company she represented, only to be delayed so long while waiting for her interview that she missed her international flight and part of the tour.
For many artists, expedited processing feels like a requirement to guarantee they’ll make it to their scheduled performances.
“It feels like you’re basically bribing the U.S. government to review your petition,” said Devlin, the booking agent.
She said that fees and visa concerns have reduced her 2026 bookings by half of what they should be, pushing her to reconsider the sustainability of the career path.
“My roster is really limited,” she said. “A lot of my international [artists] have decided it’s just an impossibility to tour the U.S. right now.”
One of Devlin’s clients, Swedish folk a cappella group Kongero, received P-3 approval for a U.S. tour after paying thousands of dollars in fees, including Premium Processing, only to be granted entry for just two months instead of the year they requested. As a result, their scheduled 2026 summer, fall and winter appearances all had to be canceled.
“With all the additional fees and costs and troubles and stress, it’s like it’s flipping it all over. It’s not worth it, not financially, and not stress-wise and workload-wise.”Emma Björling
And even then, further delays caused one group member to miss the first few performances of the granted tour, which began in the Midwest and made stops in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“I didn’t do much of that, because I was stuck back home without a visa,” said singer and musician Emma Björling.
Newly implemented changes to the U.S. non-immigrant visa process played a role in Björling missing the first week of the tour. One, which went into effect last fall, requires nearly all nonimmigrant visa applicants to attend an in-person interview at the U.S. Consulate in their country of residence, rather than at any U.S. Consulate worldwide. That meant that Björling, who was on tour in Canada with another international music group, Skye Consort, around the time the changes went into effect, had to wrap up her tour and return to Sweden to complete the interview process just a few weeks before Kongero’s tour began.
Björling contrasted the experience with earlier tours with Skye Consort.
“We didn’t have to do the expedited visas. We didn’t have to do interviews. We had all our visas in time, and the same type of bookings would actually give us a good chunk of income,” she said. “Now, with all the additional fees and costs and troubles and stress, it’s like it’s flipping it all over. It’s not worth it, not financially, and not stress-wise and workload-wise.”
While visa challenges have intensified under the current administration, the U.S. has long been a difficult place for international artists to tour. Roe noted that non-immigrant visa fees also increased during the Biden administration.
“From the 12 years that I’ve been here, there has always been a concern,” she said.
Support systems and their limits
A small number of organizations exist specifically to help international artists navigate the visa system, although they, too, face mounting challenges.
The New York-based Artistic Freedom Initiative was founded in 2017 by immigration and human rights attorneys to seek lawful entry, both permanent and temporary, into the U.S. for “at-risk” international artists — artists who face persecution, censorship or crisis in their home countries — so they can “exhibit, perform, screen or otherwise display their work in a free and safe environment.” The group has taken on nearly 2,500 cases since its founding.
“It’s been a nerve-wracking year for everyone who is trying to do everything right, and there’s just this broader climate of fear of how to navigate the immigration system,” said Zelo Safi, a senior attorney with the Artistic Freedom Initiative.
For some artists, like Dieu-Nalio Chery, support from immigration attorneys has been critical. The award-winning Haitian photojournalist fled his country after he was shot by a senator while documenting political unrest for the Associated Press and targeted by gangs. He became a visual artist in residence with AFI’s New York City Artist Safe Haven Residency Program.
“They helped me navigate because, you know, it was so difficult for me,” he said. “From Haiti to a life in New York, it was a lot of challenge.”
Chery now works as a staff photographer at the University of Michigan.
Tamizdat also provides pro bono legal assistance to international artists without representation. The organization predicts the number of international artist visits to the U.S. may be cut in half in 2026 compared to last year.
Other programs have not survived. World Fest, an Arts Midwest residency program that brought international ensembles to rural communities, was sunset last spring after rising visa costs and delays made the model unsustainable. For years, the program filled a gap for schools and towns with little access to live performances.
“Many times, students would bring their whole family to the groups’ concerts after seeing them at their school earlier in the week,” the organization wrote in a farewell address. “For many rural Midwesterners, the world felt a little smaller thanks to World Fest programming.”
A weapon against misconception
Many presenters, advocates and artists said the work of bringing international voices and artistry to the U.S. remains essential.
“It’s really important that we continue to do this work because of what’s happening,” Mulcahy said. “I think culture is one of our greatest weapons against all these misconceptions about the community. Far too often, when we’re talking about Latinos, people stereotype. They think that all Latinos are the same, where Latinos are incredibly diverse, from Cuba to Mexico to Argentina to Spain and the Iberian Peninsula.”
“I think a lot of us in arts and culture want what we’re doing to be borderless."Danielle Devlin, international tour manager
And despite the uncertainty and financial strain, artists and the presenters who host them are in the effort together.
“I think a lot of us in arts and culture want what we’re doing to be borderless,” Devlin said. “It just means a lot to me and to artists around the world that people are still willing to put international artists on stage and to put themselves out there and not worry about every ticket sale.”
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.
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METHODS
Josie Fischels reached out to and interviewed international artists and tour managers from Austria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Haiti, Nigeria, Spain, Sweden and Venezuela, as well as immigration attorneys and cultural center leaders from across the Midwest. She conducted extensive research on nonimmigrant artist visas using information made available by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, as well as international artist resources, like Artists from Abroad, including the fees and requirements that changed during the months of her reporting.
REFERENCES
USCIS - Temporary (Nonimmigrant) Workers
The Artistic Freedom Initiative
Immigration Law of Montana, P.C.
Nebraska concerts canceled after Czech musician denied entry into U.S. (Nebraska Public Media | July 4, 2025)
Expanded “Travel Ban” to Take Effect January 1, 2026 (U.S. Congress | Dec. 19, 2025)
Aggressive immigration enforcement makes musicians rethink U.S. tours (NPR | May 12, 2025)
New murals debut in New Bohemia, Czech Village districts after overcoming challenges (The Cedar Rapids Gazette, Sept. 8, 2025)
Sweeping cuts hit NEA after Trump administration calls to eliminate the agency (NPR | May 3, 2025)
Nonimmigrant Visa Fee Increases to Take Effect June 17, 2023 (U.S. Department of State, June 2, 2023)
Finalist: Dieu Nalio Chery and Rebecca Blackwell of Associated Press (2020 Pulitzer Prizes)
A Haitian Photojournalist Finds Safety in Manhattan (The New York Times | April 11, 2022)
TYPE OF ARTICLE
Enterprise — An in-depth examination of a single subject requiring extensive research and resources.
