Passports and Visas

Atlanta has a population of 6.1 million people, making it the 9th most populous metropolitan area in the United States.  Atlanta is the capital of Georgia, which is the 8th most populous of the 50 states.  The city and surrounding area—known as the Atlanta metropolitan area—is also the commercial capital of the Southeast United States and has the third-largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the country.  The metropolitan area includes the municipalities of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Chamblee, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Duluth, Norcross, Tucker, Decatur, Mableton, Clarkston, Conyers, and others.  Atlanta is a diverse and international city that includes a growing population of immigrants from South Asia, including newcomers from Nepal.  The Atlanta metropolitan area has a population of around 5,000 immigrants from Nepal and is home to the Nepalese Association of Georgia, an organization whose mission is to preserve and promote Nepali cultural heritage.  This organization celebrates several events throughout the year such as Nepal New Year and Hindu festivals like Dashain, Tihar, and Hartalika Teej.  Atlanta also has a Nepali Cultural Center that provides Nepali language lessons and even has a few restaurants that serve traditional dishes from Nepal.

Los Angeles is America’s second most populous city after New York.  Greater Los Angeles—which includes Los Angeles County, San Bernardino County, Riverside County, Ventura County, and Orange County—has a population of nearly 19 million people.  Known for its endless sprawl, Greater Los Angeles is the largest metropolitan region in the United States by land area and includes over 200 cities such as Santa Monica, Pasadena, Culver City, Burbank, Long Beach, Carson, Irvine, Anaheim, and Inglewood.  Los Angeles and the Southern California region have a huge economy that attracts people from all over the country.  The area also attracts immigrants from all over the world to pursue business opportunities.  There are 15,000 Bangladeshi immigrants in Los Angeles and about 25,000 living throughout Southern California, making this the 2^nd most populated region in the United States for people whose ethnic heritage comes from Bangladesh.  Los Angeles is home to Little Bangladesh, a four-block area near the Islamic Center of Southern California that has Bangladeshi restaurants and shops.  The city is also home to several cultural and social organizations such as the Bangladesh Unity Federation of Los Angeles, which organizes the annual Bangladesh Independence Day Parade. 

San Francisco, known as the “City by the Bay”, is one of America’s most famous and beautiful cities.  Located in Northern California, San Francisco is just one of the many cities that together make up the San Francisco Bay Area, or Bay Area for short.  The 14-county combined statistical area (that comprises the Bay Area) has nearly 10 million people, making it the fifth-most populous region in the United States.  The Bay Area includes cities such as Oakland, Berkeley, Vallejo, Concord, Pleasanton, Fremont, San Jose, San Mateo, and Palo Alto.  The Bay Area is well known for its cultural diversity and large Asian and Pacific Islander population.  There are an estimated 20,000 Laotian Americans living in the San Francisco Bay Area, making this one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country with immigrants from Laos.  And in the neighboring Central Valley cities of Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, and Fresno, the population of Laotian Americans numbers about 40,000.  The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the few places in the United States that has Lao cuisine and restaurants that are branded as having origins from Laos.  San Francisco is home to the Center for Lao Studies, which is one of the few organizations in the world that promotes and preserves the cultures and languages of Laos.

UPDATED January 21, 2024

Charlotte is the 23rd-most populous city in the United States and is the most populous city in the state of North Carolina.  The Charlotte metropolitan area is a sixteen-county region that stretches into the state of South Carolina and includes the towns of Concord, Gastonia, Huntersville, Kannapolis, Mooresville, Monroe, Salisbury, Matthews, Statesville, Rock Hill (SC), and Fort Mill (SC).  Known as the Queen City, this metropolis of 2.6 million people has been one of the country’s fastest-growing cities the past two decades.  Charlotte’s youthful population, low cost of living, and geographic location in America’s Sun Belt, have made it an attractive destination for business investment, including investment from outside the country.  Before the pandemic, the state of North Carolina was one of the top destinations for investors from China.  North Carolina has a range of industries that match the interest of Chinese firms, including textiles, agriculture, chemicals, industrial machinery, and various high-technology businesses.  There are nearly fifty Chinese firms with investments in the Charlotte area along with numerous American companies doing business in China.  There are a few thousand citizens of China living in the Charlotte area and the city is home to the Carolina Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

UPDATED November 26, 2022 (Please see information below under "Other things to consider")

Seattle is the largest city in the state of Washington and is also the largest city in America’s Pacific Northwest region.  Known as the “Emerald City”, Seattle is situated in a magnificent natural environment along the Puget Sound, surrounded by evergreen forests, mountains, and water.  The Seattle metropolitan area (the fifteenth-largest metropolis in the United States) has a population of 4 million people and includes the cities of Tacoma, Bellevue, Kent, Everett, Renton, Kirkland, and Redmond.  The area is home to several famous companies such as Nordstrom, Costco, Amazon, Microsoft, Expedia, Redfin, Zillow, and Starbucks.  This base of companies makes Seattle an attractive destination for jobseekers from around the world, including workers from the Philippines.  Immigrants from the Philippines have a long history in Seattle that goes back over 100 years starting when the first Filipinos came to the city to study at the University of Washington.  Nowadays there are over 100,000 Filipinos and Americans with ethnic heritage from the Philippines living in the Seattle metropolitan area.  Seattle is home to several Filipino cultural and community organizations that host annual festivals and events like the Pagdiriwang Philippine Festival, Pista sa Nayon, and the Diwa Filipino Film Festival. 

Atlanta has a population of 6.2 million people, making it the 9th most populous metropolitan area in the United States.  Atlanta is the capital of Georgia, which is the 8th most populous of the 50 states.  The city and surrounding area—known as the Atlanta metropolitan area—is also the commercial capital of the Southeast United States.  The metropolitan area includes the municipalities of Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Chamblee, Roswell, Alpharetta, Marietta, Duluth, Norcross, Tucker, Decatur, Mableton, Conyers, and others.  Atlanta has become a diverse and international city that includes a growing Asian population, including about 5,000 residents that immigrated to the area from Laos (or who were born in the U.S. but have parents who immigrated from Laos).  Known as Laotian Americans, this group initially came to America in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s as refugees escaping the turmoil of their country after the Vietnam War.  In recent years, other immigrants from Laos have moved to Atlanta through family sponsorship or through cultural and education exchanges.  Atlanta is home to the Laotian American Society of Georgia, an organization that hosts community events throughout the year and celebrates the culture of Laos.  Atlanta is also home to four Lao Buddhist temples.

New York is America’s most-populous city, and its metropolitan area has over 20 million people.  New York City contains the five boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx.  The New York metropolitan area includes New York City, Long Island, and the Mid and Lower Hudson Valley.  It also includes several large cities in New Jersey such as Newark, Edison, Elizabeth, Paterson, Jersey City, and Hoboken, along with cities in Connecticut that include New Haven, Bridgeport, and Stamford.  New York is considered “Capital of the World”, not only due to its economic power, but also because it is a center of diplomacy and culture.  The city is home to the United Nations and there are over 800 languages spoken here, including Vietnamese.  There are an estimated 15,000 ethnic Vietnamese in New York City and about 40,000 living in the New York metropolitan area.  Unlike other major U.S. cities, there is no “Little Saigon” where Vietnamese businesses congregate.  However, New York is home to the Vietnam Heritage Center, a nonprofit organization that promotes Vietnamese traditions and teaches the Vietnamese language.  They also host annual events such as the Vietnamese Lunar New Year (Tết) and Vietnamese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival (Tết Trung Thu).

The city of Tampa, located on the Gulf Coast of Florida, is one of the three principal cities (the other two being St. Petersburg and Clearwater) that make up the Tampa Bay area.  The Tampa Bay area is the 18th-largest metropolis in the United States and has a population of 3.1 million people.  The metropolis is home to several Fortune 500 companies and has a strong foundation of financial services and information technology firms.   The metro area includes the counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Citrus, and Manatee, along with the towns of Brandon, Palm Harbor, Dunedin, Largo, Tarpon Springs, and Bradenton.  There are an estimated 80,000 Tampa residents with Cuban heritage, making this the third-largest population of Cuban Americans in the United States.  Tampa has deep ties to Cuba that go back to the cigar factories built here in the 19^th century.  These factories were constructed in the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa, which became known as the “Cigar Capital of the World”.  Along with Cuban tobacco, the factories imported workers from Cuba with the skills needed to make hand rolled cigars.  There are thousands of people in Tampa today that descended from these Cuban immigrants.  Tampa is home to El Circulo Cubano, the oldest Cuban American assocation in the United States.

UPDATED January 21, 2024

The city of Orlando, located in the Central Florida region of the United States and known as “the City Beautiful”, is ranked as America’s 23rd most-populous city.  The Orlando metropolitan area includes towns such as Kissimmee, Sanford, Winter Garden, Winter Park, Altamonte Springs, and Apopka.  The metro area has a population of 2.6 million people and is home to several theme parks including Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios.  Orlando’s theme parks, natural attractions, and year-round warm weather make it one of the most-visited cities in the world.  The Orlando economy is expanding thanks to the internal migration of Americans from slow growth states along with the flow of immigrants from all over the world, including from China.  There are 15,000 Chinese living in the Orlando area—the majority either moving directly from China or from other parts of the U.S. to purchase real estate.  Orlando has been one of the top American cities for Chinese home purchases in recent years because of the area’s lower prices and variety of high-end lakefront and golf community properties.  Before the pandemic, Orlando had about 300,000 annual visitors from China.  Chinese attend trade shows and sports camps and enjoy Orlando’s theme parks and golf courses.

Peru’s fast-growing economy and free trade agreements with the United States continue to offer business opportunities for companies in Atlanta and across the Southeast.  As the COVID-19 pandemic fades, more businesspeople are considering obtaining visas that allow them to spend days or months in Peru to pursue those prospects.

Situated in the western part of South America along the Pacific Ocean and the Andes Mountains, Peru is bordered by Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador.  The country covers 1.3 million square feet spanning three regions: Coast (Costa), Highlands (Sierras) and Jungle (Amazonia).  The multicultural nation of 31.5 million Spanish and Quechua-speaking inhabitants features the cosmopolitan capital city of Lima alongside vast natural reserves and colorful indigenous traditions.  Lima is roughly a seven-hour direct flight from Atlanta via Delta Air Lines.