It’s far from clear-cut. According to the U.S. State Department, "Unless canceled or revoked, a visa is valid until its expiration date. Therefore, a valid U.S. visa in an expired passport is still valid. … You may use your valid visa in your expired passport along with a new valid passport for travel and admission to the United States."
However, we spoke to Maria Upson of the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, who told us that someone like the ladies of Sydney After Dark, the topless revue from Down Under that recently closed at the Tropicana before it had even officially opened, "would need to depart right away because … that visa is issued only for that employer." They would have to return to their country of origin and start the application process all over again, should the show get picked up again in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the visa application is filed by the prospective employer, then referred to the U.S. consulate office in the artists’ country for additional vetting.
The pamphlet given to visa applicants states, "Your temporary work visa does not give you permission to work for any employer that you choose – it is permission to work only for the employer listed on your visa application. In rare cases, it may be possible to change employers … When you apply for the visa, a U.S. Consular officer will meet with you and confirm that your contract complies with U.S. law." If they lose their employment they must change their visa status, find a new job or leave the U.S.
"One option is for aspiring actors to travel to the United States to attend acting school under an F1 visa status," writes immigration attorney Sasha Sinnott in DailyActor.com. "Once here, they can take proactive steps to enhance their resumes and credentials so that they will have increased chances of getting jobs and later qualifying for temporary visas or their green card. (Sinnott then provides a list of five specific steps for qualifying for a higher-grade visa.)
"Obtaining a green card," she adds, "is a huge relief as it allows entertainment professionals to live and work in the U.S. without restriction or fear of losing status. That said, in order for an entertainment professional to qualify for a green card they must already be qualified in their field of specialty."
If you fall within a "specialty occupation," you have somewhat greater latitude under the H-1B visa category. But to qualify, you must display exceptionally specialized skills in your field of the arts, including a bachelors’ degree or its equivalent. "These are not easy to come by and require some advance planning," MGM Resorts International spokesman Alan Feldman says of the H-1B visas. "You can't just crank them out at high volume," confirmed prominent U.S. visa attorney Chris Wright. "The employer usually arranges the visas - Cirque, Disney, Broadway producers, rock-concert promoters, etc. I don’t think we have any immigration lawyers on staff," Feldman resumes. "I think we use outside counsel for our employees -- but I think Cirque may have a full-time lawyer on the topic." (We attempted but could obtain no official comment from Cirque du Soleil.)
Hugh Hefner girlfriend Shera Bechard is the poster girl of the H-1B "genius" visa, having obtained one for having "started an online photo-sharing craze called ‘Frisky Friday.’" "There's nothing in those regulations that requires you to be a genius," her attorney told Reuters. "It's quite condescending to say, ‘Oh, the idiot Playboy Playmates, they don't qualify.’"
Further complicating the issue are ‘O’ and ‘P’ visas. The O visa boils down to being a "person [who] is one of the small percentage who has risen to the very top of the field of endeavor." (We know a now-retired but former child-prodigy Argentinian dancer whose acclaimed gaucho act -- the first of its kind to hit U.S. soil -- qualified to work in the U.S. on the basis of this criterion and went on to count Sinatra among his biggest fans.) "The O-1 visa allows individuals of ‘extraordinary ability’ to come to the United States for up to three years, and can be extended. British journalist Piers Morgan used one when he replaced Larry King on his late-night TV show," reports Reuters.
"There is also no cap on the number of O-1s that the government can award each year; about 12,280 were approved in 2011, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said, up from 9,478 in 2006," Reuters adds. H-1Bs are already maxed out for the year at 85,000 issued. Unlike the H-1B, the O-1 does not require a college education, however. But still, bureaucrats "just don't understand the concept of someone being skilled without 12 years of experience or a bachelor’s degree," complained Irish entrepreneur John Collison.
There are myriad classifications of ‘P’ visa, including "Member of an Internationally Recognized Entertainment Group" and "Artist or Entertainment Part of a Culturally Unique Program," which are the most applicable here. The first category, P-1B comes with a formidable list of criteria but contains an interesting (and wide) exemption: "Alien circus performers and essential circus personnel are exempt the one year requirement and the internationally recognized requirement. The alien or aliens must be coming to join a nationally recognized circus." That would create an expansive window of opportunity for Cirque du Soleil, a significant employer in the Vegas area.
P-3 visas have a more limited applicability to Las Vegas but provide a port of entry for artists who "must be coming to the United States either individually or as a group for the purpose of developing, interpreting, representing, coaching, or teaching a unique or traditional ethnic, folk, cultural, musical, theatrical, or artistic performance or presentation." That sounds like the class of visa the cast of that other recently aborted show at the Trop, Viva Veracruz -- the tourist-board promo/cultural fusion of high tech and "artisanal handicrafts" -- perhaps were using.
Even some visa opponents have good things to say about the system. The Programmers Guild is a staunch opponent of the H-1B visa, but its spokesman Kim Berry says, "When they need to bring in the best and the brightest, [the O-1 visa,] that’s the only visa that helps America." That sentiment would surely warm the cockles of any transplanted Argentinian gaucho’s heart.
