Freelance journalists can overcome US visa difficulties

Reports last year of arrests, detention and deportation of journalists trying to enter America without visas revealed a potential double bind for freelances. If you intend to work, entry on a tourist visa is not permitted. But the I-visa required for journalists' information-gathering trips is only issued to applicants able to produce an endorsement from a recognised UK media organisation. It has to certify that the journalist is either employed or currently under contract. A freelance intending to hang some speculative story research or interviewing on the side of a non-journalistic trip is unlikely to have any honest access to such an endorsement.

Many specialist writers, including the science and technology writers of the ABSW, are freelance. They often combine writing with other work that takes them abroad. In the past they have usually been fast-tracked through US immigration under the so-called visa waiver programme. Now anyone arriving in the USA without a visa will be closely questioned and turned away if some intention to work is discovered. Even if you succeed in bluffing your way past an inquisitive immigration officer, there are worries that any subsequent contact with increasingly jittery officials could  result in an interview with the police and a summary return to immigration control.

However, in a letter to the ABSW, the US Consul in London, Marjorie Ames advised that there is a way for freelances to stay legal: "Freelance journalists [and authors] who travel to the US to conduct interviews or to do research on speculation for future publication may qualify for B1 Business visas". There is a link to the full text of her letter at the foot of this document.

This advice seems both logical and beneficial. A freelance is a one-person business; looking for stories is a way of drumming up trade. The business visa may not have the cachet of the I-visa but it has the advantage that you are your own sponsor, and won't need to obtain repeat endorsements from commissioning organisations. Business visas can be issued as a package with a tourist visa without additional cost, providing the applicant with all the entry documents they're likely to need for US trips during the ten year life of the visas.

From October this year the US visa waiver for UK passport holders will effectively end. After that only passports with digitally-encoded facial identification will be acceptable for travellers without visas but the UK won't be ready to issue them until October 2005 at the earliest. The US authorities have said they will operate a dispensation for UK travellers involving fingerprinting and photography on arrival but this will not relax the requirement for an appropriate visa if there is any intention to work.

Delays in obtaining US visas are likely to increase so the ABSW is advising members and other writers and journalists with any expectation of travel to the USA to sort out their visas quickly. The time taken to process applications and the mandatory face-to-face interview is uncertain and depends on the workload at the US Embassy's Visa Department – this is expected to rise in the run-up to October.

The Embassy discourages telephone enquiries by charging premium rates even while queuing. Consul Ames recommends instead a review of the notes for visa applicants on the Embassy web site followed by an on-line application.

Freelances applying for business visas may find it useful to attach the the Consul's letter. You can download a copy from the ABSW's site as a large .PDF file by clicking here – allow time for the transfer.

Copyright © Mike Harrison 2004
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