US issues increasing number of ‘extraordinary’ artist visas to OnlyFans ‘models’: report

According to the Financial Times, the O-1B visa, which has in years past been used by people such as Yoko Ono, the husband of John Lennon, is now being used to come to the US by social media influencers and sex workers publishing pornography on OnlyFans.

Immigration attorney Michael Wildes said, "I knew the days of representing iconic names like Boy George and Sinéad O’Connor were over," then added that the shift has been going to what he called “scroll kings and queens."

Some immigration lawyers say that influencers make up half of their clientele base. They are often taken up since metrics such as "likes" and subscribers are easy to measure instead of so-called "exceptional ability" that the visa has been previously used for. “A lay person is very easily impressed by a large number of followers,” immigration lawyer Elektra Yao said. “You don’t need to be a rocket scientist."

Between 2014 and 2024, the number of O-1B visas that have been issued has increased by over 50 percent, while at the same time, non-immigration visas have only grown by 10 percent. Although they only make up a small portion of visas that are issued by the US, they have been growing in number.

In 2024, there were around 20,000 O-1B visas issued, and they are awarded for those "with an extraordinary ability in the arts or extraordinary achievement in motion picture or television industry" as well as those "with an extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business, or athletics."

Jacob Sapochnick, an immigration lawyer, spoke to the Florida Phoenix about his first OnlyFans client who obtained an O-1B visa, but was skeptical at first. "She said, ‘Let me show you the backend of my platform.’ I looked, and she was making $250,000 a month. I was like, oh my god. Okay. I can use that."

Some immigration lawyers have worried about the focus on metrics online, where the OnlyFans workers and social media influencers will water down who is actually brought into the country with the visa meant for extraordinary ability.

“We have scenarios where people who should never have been approved are getting approved for O-1s,” immigration lawyer Protima Daryanani said. “It’s been watered down because people are just meeting the categories.”