• The New US Ministry of Culture • Protecting Artists from ICE • Artist Visa News, Nausea, and Updates • General Despair and Depression
LAW & DISORDER
Performing Arts Division
February 18, 2025
Dear Reader
Apologies for not writing since November. However, as scientists have predicted a large meteor would hit the earth at some point in the future, we were waiting for the cleansing fire of the universe to offer a re-boot. As it has yet to arrive, we must emerge from the safety of our cave and face the darkness.
Typically, we at GG Arts Law try to address a range of issues that we feel are important to the performing arts, not just regarding international touring, but all of the various complexities and challenges of arts and artist management. However, let’s not pretend that anyone is focused on licensing issues or force majeure clauses at the moment as we all try to keep up with the Executive Orders, proclamations, and edicts Trump shoots out daily like a human norovirus. Instead, let’s jump directly on what these mean for the performing arts in general, and international artists and collaborations in particular.
Legal Issue of the Month: The New US Ministry of Culture
This isn’t a straightforward legal issue per se, but 99% of what we do is therapy anyway. So, I beg your indulgence as I engage in some of my own.
It is no secret that I have long railed about the US being one of the few countries in the world lacking a Ministry of Culture. In retrospect, I now realize that hiding under the bleachers translating Elvish with your worn copy of The Lord of The Rings and being ignored was a blessing. In 1978, at the official opening of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, President Jimmy Carter wisely observed:
We don’t have a ministry of culture in this country, and I hope we never will. We have no official arts in this country, and I pray there never will be. No matter how democratic a government may be, no matter how responsive to the wishes of its people: it can never be the government’s job to define exactly what is good, true or beautiful. Instead, government must limit itself to nurturing the soil in which art and the love of art can grow.
In recent weeks, the MAGA Mussolini has instead bulldozed the soil and deluged it with wolf urine.
In his January 27, 2025 memo ordering a temporary halt to “all federal financial assistance,” Trump identified the programmes he claimed “undermined the national interest,” including those run by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as the Department of Education’s Arts in Education grant and the Department of the Interior’s Pacific Northwest and Hawaiian Islands Arts grant.
Then, on January 30, 2025 Trump disbanded the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, a non-partisan cultural committee that had existed since it was created by Republican President Ronald Reagan. In addition to prominent artists, scholars, and philanthropists, the committee’s Ex-Officio members include the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Kennedy Center, the Director of the National Gallery of Art, and the head of the Library of Congress. During Trump’s first reign, the members of the committee resigned in protest to his policies refusing to condemn white supremacy, and so he dissolved the committee. President Biden used an Executive Order to reinstate the committee in 2022, tapping Lady Gaga and Bruce Cohen to co-chair the group. This time in addition to dissolving the committee once again Trump announced he was naming Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone to be what he deemed his "special ambassadors to the movie industry,” writing on Truth Social: "It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!" Since then, Stallone and Voight have already been cast in a remake of The Wiz with an all-white cast, and Gibson has been tapped to direct Mad Max VII: Jesus is Back and Pissed. (Please note, as it is become increasing more difficult to discern actual US policy from an episode of Bevis and Butthead, I feel compelled to acknowledge that, whilst plausible, I am not aware of this last bit actually being true.)
As for Trump’s constant temper tantrum of Tariffs, these will impact the costs of imported paper products, textiles, woods, fabrics, and other materials used to create props, costumes, murals, and artworks, as well as sound and lighting equipment and a myriad of other specialized products that will add to the costs of shows, concerts, and arts presenting.
Trump has now sent a direct blast through the performing arts by staging a hostile take-over of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC by dismissing multiple board members and having himself enthroned as its new chairman, announcing "I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the board of trustees, including the chairman, who do not share our vision for a golden age in arts and culture.” Notwithstanding the fact that Trump has self-admittedly never attended anything at the Kennedy Center, he harangued: “We don’t need woke at the Kennedy Center. Some of the shows were terrible. They were a disgrace that they were even put on. So, I will be there until such time it gets to be running right.” Trump then posted a photo that appeared to be AI-generated of himself as an orchestra conductor with the caption "Welcome to the New Kennedy Center!" He has since conscripted the house ushers into a militia to barricade the Roof Terrace Restaurant until it can be turned into a TGI Fridays and appointed Kid Rock as the new artist-in-residence of the National Symphony Orchestra. (Again, this last bit is not true, but reasonable supposition does suggest that Marjorie Taylor Green has already proposed that the role of Aida in all future productions be portrayed by an AI-generated hologram of Anita Bryant.)
With regard to artists coming from outside of the US, there have so far been no Executive Orders explicitly focused on US artist visas in particular. Most of the Orders regarding immigration, including the invitingly entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” and “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship” and “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” merely broadly underscore and emphasize the complete discretion of The US Department of Homeland Security (which includes United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) and the US State Department (which governs the US Consulates around the world) to deny visas to anyone for any reason.
However, buried within the Order titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and other National Security and Public Safety Threats” are significant implications for artist visas. The Order directs the Department of Homeland Security, USICS, and the State Department to re-evaluate ALL visa rules and regulations to ensure that people entering the US “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.” Specifically, the Order calls for the Department of Homeland Security, USCIS, and the State Department to:
Evaluate all visa programs to ensure that they are not used by foreign nation-states or other hostile actors to harm the security, economic, political, cultural, or other national interests of the United States. (Sec.3(c));
Recommend any actions necessary to protect the American people from the actions of foreign nationals who have undermined or seek to undermine the fundamental constitutional rights of the American people, including, but not limited to, our Citizens’ rights to freedom of speech and the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment, who preach or call for sectarian violence, the overthrow or replacement of the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands, or who provide aid, advocacy, or support for foreign terrorists (Sec.3(d)); and
Evaluate the adequacy of programs designed to ensure the proper assimilation of lawful immigrants into the United States and recommend any additional measures to be taken that promote a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States. (Sec.3(f).
Historically, artist visas have never been attached to cultural or artistic considerations. For USCIS, approving a visa petition has only ever been dependent on ticking the boxes of their narrow understanding of what makes an artist “distinctive” based mostly on awards, money, and media attention. For US Consulates, approving and issuing visa stamps has only ever focused (more or less) on background checks and perceived risks of immigration violations. Taken collectively, these new Orders give USCIS and US Consulates the authority to deny or withhold artist visas based on programming and content as well. Not only can this authority be used to deny artist visas to artists who refuse to commit to a specific gender identity, but also to deny visas to artists or groups who present concerts and performances that even whisper of diversity, equity, or inclusion; are critical of the US, Trump, religion (the one with God holding an American flag), or anything that does not comport with “the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands” as recognized by the new US Ministry of Culture.
Obviously, no official US Ministry of Culture as such has been created pursuant to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States as they existed prior to January 20, 2025. Rather, just as Trump demonically conjured the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) so that President Musk and his teenage mutants could pick apart the government like a pack of seagulls attacking a french-fry, Trump has effectively appointed himself the Crypt Keeper of Culture. As such, funding and other support will be restricted solely for those artists and institutions who align with his strict ideological vision of Neo-America and who promote the political and cultural agenda of his sycophants, theocrats, fanatics, acolytes and cultists, whereas withholding funds, threatening existing funding, curtailing international collaborations and performances, and other retaliatory means will be used either to coerce compliance or punish those artists and arts institutions who refuse to capitulate. Far from being limited to federal funding, this would extent to a scenario in which a city’s or state’s request for federal transportation or disaster support could be dependent on them refusing to fund an experimental theatre or an arts programme which displeases the thought police.
To a degree, some of this is not new. There is a long history in the US of hostility toward public arts funding. Almost every four years there are calls to defund or eliminate the NEA, National Public Radio, Big Bird, and other threats to the common good. And we have an equally long history of public outcries over perceived wickedness of the arts. An article in the Southern Literary Messenger from 1835 blasted the waltz, the new dance craze which had arrived from Europe, as “licentious” and a “foreign corruption.” The 1950s and 1960s saw everything from “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets to the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” banned from radio. And in the 1970s we were told heavy metal would turn everyone into Satanists. (Turns out they were marginally correct on that one, except it was the jazz harmonica.) Having served on grant panels myself, the allocation of public funding to arts projects always requires judgements that will make someone unhappy. However, traditionally this has led to little more than calls to let the arts fend for themselves and keep the government out of it. Designating all non-government sanctioned arts as a potential threat to national interest and an attack on American identity comes from a very different and bloodied playbook—one in which non-government approved art is labelled “degenerate,” specific ethnic music forbidden, and even languages banned.
So, yes, dear reader, none of this bodes well, all seems bleak, and there is much reason to join me beneath the covers and wait for the aforementioned meteor. However, the arts have been down this path many times before. And survived. The arts have always been perceived, correctly so, as a threat to despots, dictators, and propogandists, both political and religious, who seek to control and manipulate a narrative for their own ends. Yet history shows that even in the most oppressive of circumstances nothing will stop artists from making the work that needs to be made, telling the stories that need to be told, and presenting the voices that need to get heard. It just gets done differently and often in more subversive and subliminal ways.
We are not facing an existential crisis for the arts. Rather, we are facing an existential crisis for ourselves to continue to do the work that needs to be done. Surviving the next four years and beyond won’t be about speeches, advocacy, or any other pleas or entries to those who have long since sold their souls to various gods of chaos or indifference. It will be about neither shirking nor shrinking from the ever-daunting work of creating, presenting, producing, performing, mocking, ridiculing, and subverting with authenticity, truth, creativity, imagination, and persistence, as well as not just a little glitter, beads, and feathers. It will be about plying the same seas to connect to our humanity while creating new channels for humanity to find its way into those who, for now, cannot see the humanity in others. It will require embracing not just diversity within the arts, but amongst the arts in all of its myriads of forms, genres, and natures.
The first act of the universe was its creation. The expression of creativity is art. It is indelible, unstoppable, and it will continue long after the Kennedy Center has been forced to open it’s 2025/2026 Season with Lara Trump performing with the J6 Choir.
Thanks for your indulgence of this diatribe and its extravagant length. I just needed to get that out of my system. To be continued…
Dear Law and Disorder: Actual questions we get asked and the answers people actually don’t want
"Copyrights & Translations”
Dear Law & Disorder:
As I’m sure you are fully aware, ICE is making raids everywhere and detaining people even if they have legal status. I work with a number of non-US artists, several from places I know Trump does not like. I am very concerned. What can I do to protect them please? What documents should they carry? So, I would appreciate your advice during this dark, dark time.
It breaks my heart to read your email, but we have, indeed, entered dark, sad times. So far at least, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids have actually been focused and targeted. ICE is primarily looking for non-US citizens whom they already know are here illegally and/or who have already been arrested for other crimes. While they are also focused on specific demographics and racial profiles, such as members of the Norwegian mafia smuggling contraband shipments of whitefish into illegal mah-jong clubs on the upper west side, we don’t foresee them going after artists in particular.
However, as ICE agents are even worse than the HR department of almost any college or university in being able to discern the various different visas and classification which allow an artist to perform in the US, we recommend artists and other arts professionals to travel with a copy of their passport, a copy of their USCIS Approval Notice, and a copy of their visa stamp. (Keep the originals in a safe place or with someone you trust who can get access to them.)
Artist Visa News, Nausea & Updates
Every day we are getting asked what new rules and polices to expect or anticipate. We’d like to know, too. Aside from being able to state with a reasonable degree of certainty that nothing is going to improve, we wake up each day just as the rest of the world on a tear stained pillow and begin doom scrolling to see whether the US has invaded Nova Scotia or unilaterally changed the name of Greenland to “Red-White-and-Blueland.” (I wish I could take credit for this last one, but on February 12, 2025 Representative Earl “Buddy” Carter’s (R-Ga) actually introduced a two-page bill to Congress proposing this name change. Seriously, you can read it here We just don’t know.
Here’s all we actually do know.
1. New I-129 Form
Let’s start with something irritating, but relatively benign. On December 31, 2024, US Citizenship and Immigration Services updated Form I-129 (the form used to apply for artist visas) and announced that effective January 17, 2025 it would only accept the 01/17/2025 edition of Form I-129.
Additional questions were added on Page 5, Part 5. USCIS is now asking for the addresses of every location a person will work in the US. As these questions are not actually applicable to artist visas and were, in fact, created to address other visa categories, you could simply answer “NA” or “Not Applicable. However, as it has always been my preference not to challenge any at USCIS to think, I recommend putting in one of two answers:
>>>If the artist or group will be performing at multiple venues, answer “see itinerary.”
>>>If the artist or group will only be performing for a single presenter or venue, then just list the name and address of the venue.
As USCIS will often update and change forms with minimal notice, we always recommend downloading the latest version of I-129 from the USCIS website whenever you start a new petition. Never just update an old I-129 Form.
2. USCIS is Still Obsessed with Support Staff
Despite the insistence that the US is teaming with deranged, maniacal masses from foreign shores, USCIS persists in finding the time and resources to scrutinize visa petitions for O-2, P-1S, and P-3S artistic support staff and crew (stage managers, lighting designers, artist administrators, development staff, etc.) who need visas to tour with artists and groups. USCIS continues to issue Requests for Evidence (RFE) challenging the past experience of staff and crew working with an artist or group, their qualifications and training, and why they simply can’t be replaced with a US worker. USCIS appears to be particularly focused on stage crew and others who have been engaged specifically for a US tour and have never previously worked with the artist or group. Aside from the exasperation, receiving an RFE puts an entire petition on hold, causing delays and often additional costs. It is thus critical to provide what USCIS is looking for upfront as part of the initial petition.
For each staff or crew member, include (1) a “detailed” bio/resume of everyone they have worked (not just a 3 sentence summary of their skills and a vague description of their past work); (2) an explanation of their prior work with the artist or group; and (3) a specific reason you cannot hire someone in the US to do their job. Remember, nothing is obvious or self-evidence to USCIS. This includes explaining why a stage manager has to have been at prior rehearsals or performances to run a show or why you can’t simply find an unemployed orchestra manager lounging outside the stage door of Carnegie Hall who will help you out for a few hours. (We actually received an RFE along these lines.) For any staff or crew who are, in fact, being engaged specifically to augment a US tour or engagement, emphasize the preparation and pre-tour work they will have done ahead of entering the US.
3. Visa Petition Processing Times
Standard Processing for artist visa petitions continues to range from 2 – 6 months depending on which USCIS Service Center a petition is tossed at. (As a reminder, you can no longer control in advance which USCI Service Center will receive a petition.) If a petition is thrown to the Vermont Service Center, standard processing is taking closer to 2 months whereas if it cast into the black hole of the California Service Center it could take closer to 6 months for it to emerge.
However, as President Musk continues to fire large swathes of government employees, we anticipate staff shortages that will likely only cause further delays at both USCIS and US Consulates.
For now, except for petitions which must be approved sooner than 2 months, we are submitting all petitions with standard processing, waiting to see where they end up, and then upgrading to premium processing if they end up in California.
4. Interview Waivers Have Been Restricted
As per Emperor Trump, interview waivers are no longer automatically granted or available and no one is automatically eligible—even if a person has been given an interview waiver before.
Some, but not all, consulates will offer the option of requesting an interview waiver if you are applying for a visa stamp in the same category as a visa stamp you were issued within the last 12 months prior to the date of your application. Some will automatically waive the interview if you qualify and let you know later if you will need one. Others refuse to grant interview waivers at all. In other words, each consulate makes up its own rules. The only way to know is to check the website of the consulate where you intend to apply for the visa stamp.
5. Travel Bans and Fee Increases
They are not here yet, but bans most certainly will come. Amongst the aforementioned Executive Orders is the authority for the US to ban travel from countries that refuse to accept their citizens deported from the US or who simply, in the eyes of the US, have too many of their citizens, undocumented or otherwise, living in the US, likely to include India, China, Mexico, and Brazil.
Travel bans and/or increased visa fees could also likely be imposed on any country deemed to be uncooperative with US policies or demands. As with the bans in the first Trump contamination, there will probably be some narrow exceptions created through which to request waivers. However, as before, such waiver requests would require additional applications and incur additional costs.
Also, during his last regime, Trump imposed a strict “public charge rule" used to target and ban individuals from entering the US thought likely to rely on public support resources or not to have sufficient employment income. We highly anticipate those coming back as well.
Deep Thoughts…
“You’ll be back!”
― King George III
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The purpose of this blog is to provide general advice and guidance, not legal advice. Please consult with an attorney familiar with your specific circumstances, facts, challenges, medications, psychiatric disorders, past-lives, karmic debt, and anything else that may impact your situation before drawing any conclusions, deciding upon a course of action, sending a nasty or threatening email to someone, filing a lawsuit, or basically doing anything that may in any way rely upon an assumption that we know what we are talking about.