# Canadian craftsman teaching a workshop in the US: which visa category?



## brad (May 22, 2009)

Canadian artists (musicians, etc.) don't need visas to perform or teach in the US, but they do need approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services:

http://www.artistsfromabroad.org/immigration-procedures/choosing-the-right-visa-category/canadians/

I'm on the board of an arts nonprofit in the US, and we bring instructors to our event every year from other countries, including Canada. We do it all the legal way, filing for the correct performer classifications and paying all the fees. Most of our instructors are musicians, so they get the P visa. But this year we have one instructor coming who's a craftsman; he'll be giving workshops to teach a specific skill. We've spent hours online and on the phone, trying to figure out which classification he should apply for, to no avail.

I'm posting this on the off chance that anyone here might have gone through this process or knows a visual artist or craftsperson who has. He's not coming to sell his products, but to teach. But he's not a teacher, he's a craftsman who's teaching a workshop and we're paying him to teach the workshop. We are very experienced at getting P visas for performers, but this new situation has stumped us. He could always just cross the border and take his chances, but I have two friends who were banned entry from the US for five years for attempting to do the same thing (it's easy nowadays with the Internet for customs officials to Google you and see that you're performing or teaching somewhere), and we don't want to take any chances.

Thanks.


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