Everything seemed set for the American debut last month of Pitingo, the rising young flamenco singing star: the Grand Ballroom at Manhattan Center had been booked, tickets and program prepared, a publicity budget spent, nonrefundable airline tickets purchased. But when he went to the United States Embassy in Madrid to pick up his visa, he learned that his name was on the “no fly” list.


Embassy officials knew that Pitingo, whose real name is Antonio Manuel Álvarez Vélez, is not a terrorist, and that the real target was someone else who shared his very common name. But procedures are procedures, and by the time the confusion was sorted out it was too late for Pitingo to fly to New York, and his concert had to be canceled. His management and the concert promoters incurred losses of nearly $25,000.


The case of Mr. Álvarez is not an isolated one. In the decade since the attacks on the twin towers, American visa procedures for foreign artists and performers have grown increasingly labyrinthine, expensive and arbitrary, arts presenters and immigration lawyers say, making the system a serious impediment to cultural exchanges with the rest of the world.


Some foreign performers and ensembles, like the Hallé orchestra from Britain, have decided that it is no longer worth their while to play in the United States. Others have been turned down flat, including a pair of bands invited to perform at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Tex., last month, or have ended up canceling performances because of processing delays, as was the case last month with the Tantehorse theater troupe from the Czech Republic, which was booked to perform in suburban Washington.


Overall, according to Homeland Security Department records, requests for the standard foreign performer’s visa declined by almost 25 percent between 2006 and 2010, the most recent fiscal year for which statistics are available. During the same period the number of these visa petitions rejected, though small in absolute numbers, rose by more than two-thirds.


“Everything is much more difficult,” said Palma R. Yanni, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association who also handles artists’ visas. “I didn’t think it could get worse than it was after 9/11, but the last couple of years have been terrible. It just seems like you have to fight for everything across the board, even for artists of renown. The standards have not changed, but the agency just keeps narrowing the criteria, raising the bar without notice or comment, reinterpreting things and just making everything more restrictive. We call it the culture of no.”


A foreign artist seeking authorization to perform in the United States must navigate a system that involves a pair of government departments. Homeland Security, created in 2003, evaluates the initial application and then, if approval is granted, the State Department, assuming it is satisfied with the results of an in-person interview with the performer, issues a visa at an embassy abroad.


Congress requires the process to be financially self-sustaining, rather than depend on taxpayer support, which in practice means that fees are typically higher than those of other countries. Homeland Security even offers an expedited “premium processing fee” of $1,225 per application — over and above the standard $325 filing fee — that is supposed to guarantee a response within two weeks, but arts administrators complain that the agency sometimes fails to meet its own deadline.


As part of the process the arts group sponsoring performances in the United States must also submit written proof of the artist’s qualifications, all duly translated into English. Even then there is no guarantee of timely approval of a visa request, since there are often additional “requests for evidence” of a performer’s artistic worth or personal background. The government advises performers and ensembles to submit paperwork at least 90 days before they hope to receive a visa, but arts administrators say that delays of up to six months are not unusual.


“There’s no two matters that play out in the same way,” said Jonathan Ginsburg, a Washington-based immigration lawyer whose firm, Fettman, Tolchin & Majors, represents the North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents association and other arts groups. “You can’t for a moment let your guard down, or something nasty is going to happen.”