the policy had exceeded<\/a> Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s mandate and struck it down as unlawful.<\/p>\nBut it has also sought to revoke visas from successful applicants, and in August, after the court decision, it also paused visa appointments around the world to allow for \u201cin-depth training\u201d at consular offices.<\/p>\n
With US visas becoming more difficult to acquire, some international artists, including musicians and comedians, are skipping US tours entirely.<\/p>\n
Others warn that visa hurdles could add steep legal fees to tour budgets, making them cost-prohibitive.<\/p>\n
The Tuareg-led guitar band Tinariwen from northern Africa was among the musical acts whose touring plans were thwarted by the immigration changes.<\/p>\n
A manager for the group told The New York Times earlier this year that many of its members are from Mali, a country on the visa ban list. The band had to cancel its tour dates.<\/p>\n
In August, Mexican singer Diego Millan, known as Calle 24, also announced to fans on social media that his tour dates in the US would be nixed due to immigration issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to unforeseen circumstances beyond my control, related to the unexpected revocation of my U.S. work visa, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our upcoming scheduled performances in the United States,\u201d Millan wrote.<\/p>\n
He added that he had the \u201cutmost respect for the laws\u201d and that his team was \u201cactively working to resolve this matter\u201d.<\/p>\n
Critics, however, have expressed concern that the US is using immigration policies as a means of discriminating against certain groups or stifling viewpoints the government disagrees with.<\/p>\n
Under Trump\u2019s second term, the US has sought to revoke visas and green cards, which confer permanent residency, from people who have spoken in favour of Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n
Scholars and students like Mahmoud Khalil, a former Palestinian graduate student at Columbia University, have been among the highest-profile cases. Members of the Palestinian Authority have also seen their US visas withdrawn.<\/p>\n
In an executive order on the first day of his second term, Trump announced he would push to restrict visas from those who \u201cespouse hateful ideology\u201d or hold \u201chostile attitudes toward [US] citizens\u201d, in order to safeguard the country.<\/p>\n
Since then, Rubio has drawn on the Immigration and Nationality Act to deport pro-Palestinian voices who he claims would cause \u201cpotentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States\u201d.<\/p>\n
A judge last week, however, called such policies<\/a>\u00a0a violation of the US Constitution\u2019s free speech rights.<\/p>\nAbdelhamid was born in Jerusalem to a French Algerian mother and a Serbian Palestinian father. His music often chronicles the Palestinian experience, including through descriptions of forced displacement and oppression, while sharing a sense of pride in his heritage.<\/p>\n
His upcoming tour promotes the August 21 release of his second album, AFANDI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Palestinian singer-songwriter Marwan Abdelhamid, better known under the stage name Saint Levant, has announced he has postponed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[19022,54,146,234,85,46,4432,409,43,1032,1156],"class_list":["post-603429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-government","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-migration","tag-music","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}