Mexican Band Cancels U.S. Show After Trump Administration Suspends Visas

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The favored Mexican regional music band Grupo Firme introduced on Friday that it was canceling a efficiency in a music competition in California over the weekend after the USA authorities suspended the musicians’ visas.

It comes after the U.S. State Division has revoked visas of numerous Mexican musicians for taking part in a style of music that it says glorifies cartel violence.

The group, which has soared to worldwide fame enjoying Mexican regional music, mentioned in a press release posted on its Instagram account that the visas of them and their workforce are at present below “administrative evaluation by the U.S. Embassy” and that it might make it “unattainable” for them to carry out within the La Onda Fest to be held within the metropolis of Napa Valley, California on June 1. However the publish didn’t element what it might imply in the long run for the musical group.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico mentioned that visa instances are confidential in accordance with U.S. regulation and couldn’t present extra info on the case.

The suspension is simply the most recent in a sequence of strikes the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken concentrating on Mexican artists within the style, who in some instances have glorified the leaders of cartels as type of Robin Hood figures. Whereas the style of “narco-corridos” has stirred controversy, a lot of the music additionally speaks to the cruel realities going through Mexican youth caught in cartel violence.

Two months in the past, the Mexican musical group Los Alegres del Barranco was sanctioned after it projected pictures of the chief of the dreaded Jalisco New Technology Cartel at a live performance within the western state of Jalisco.

“I’m a agency believer in freedom of expression, however that doesn’t imply that expression must be freed from penalties,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau mentioned on the time. “The very last thing we’d like is a welcome mat for individuals who extol criminals and terrorists.”

However Grupo Firme has taken steps in latest months to distance itself from the side of the musical style glorifying prison teams, asserting in April shortly after the controversy that it might not sing such music in live shows.