World Music Visa Woes - Are They Damaging the Quality of Music Available in the States?

If you're looking around for great summer concerts by world music artists, you may discover yourself looking a bit harder this year. United States visa application processes are notoriously difficult and expensive to navigate, and with the decline of the U.S. dollar, combined with what many music business professionals believe to be disorganization and/or incompetence within the Department of Homeland Security, fewer and fewer international artists are entering the United States to perform. Even household names like Boy George have been denied entry into the United States for what may be unclear reasons. The Boston Phoenix has an excellent article which explains many of these visa and work permit issues, and though the article mostly focuses on pop groups, many of the issues still apply. They talk about, for example, Rodrigo y Gabriela, who were denied entry into the states because singer Rodrigo Sanchez shares the name (but is absolutely not the same person as) a highly-wanted Mexican criminal. This caused them to cancel a number of sold-out shows, at a major cost to both the artists and the venue. And they are but one in a slew of examples.

It seems to me that music is the most powerful form of cultural exchange. Visual art is wonderful, literature is fantastic, but there's something about seeing a group of people perform their own music that adds such a context to the understanding of that culture. In this age of globalization, intercultural understanding is absolutely a must... so are we selling ourselves short by not demanding that the U.S. government make the process for musical and artistic visitation as easy as possible? Or is the policy of "deny applications first, ask questions later" reasonable in the name of national security? What do you think?