US Immigration from Philippines

Here we go! My turn again to ask more questions. They are numbered for ease of reference.

1. As I mentioned in a recent post, I have retired and have my 13A Visa in hand with a sealed envelope that I am to give to the immigration officer at NAIA. Is that the same person that we show our passports to or is there a separate office to find?

I know that I need to use my 13A Visa to get my yellow ACR-I card.

2. Can I go to the local Bureau of Immigration with my visa, photos, application and receipt of payment of the fees within a few days of arrival or is there something in that packet that I need to wait for?

3. Am I correct that the ACR card is valid for 5 years but I need to check-in every year?

We are installing as high speed internet as possible and will add VPN once we get there. I know that I asked the next three questions before, but that was a while ago. Please forgive the repeated questions!

4. A VPN would allow us to continue using US-based remittance websites, correct? (We are going to look into the great idea mentioned in a much earlier post about depositing a a US check into a US dollar account, but we want to keep access to the remittance services for emergencies and Remitly told me that they would cut us off after 6 months in the Philippines).

5. VPN also allows access to bank, credit card, SSA, etc. websites, right? Netflix is not crucial, but a nice bonus.

6. Does anyone have recommendations for a good VPN service?

The big question now is phone service. We need our phones to access our US accounts (two-factor authentication, etc. I know one big option is porting the numbers over to Google Voice, although to be honest, I haven t quite figured out that process.

7. Is Google Voice the best overall option?

8. My current cellular plan gets cut off once the numbers port over to Google Voice. Is that correct?

9. The question I thought of was: what happens when you are away from wifi or when the internet goes down? Local SIM card or e-sim card? Any and all suggestions are welcome. I thought about keeping one off the phones connected to a US cellular carrier, but I heard that they will also cut you off after 6 months (even Google Fi), so that does not seem to be a great option.

Salamat! I may have more questions over the next few weeks because this is now very real!

Hello, on May 8th, we received an RFE that does not specify what they want from us.

We've submitted an online typo report to USCIS website, but have not received any responses.

We have also tried Emma, where the agent created a ticket number for us and told us to wait for up to 10 business days for a response.

After that, we also tried to call the USCIS support number, where the agent said this was the first time she's seen this happen, and created another ticket and told us to wait for a Tier 2 Agent to contact us.

It has been over 15 business days since they sent the "Receipt Notice" of our inquiry and we have not gotten anything from them.

Has anyone here encountered something similar? What should be our next steps? It's really hard to get a hold of someone from USCIS

Thank you in advance for any insight on this

***Our I-485 has updated to ACTIVELY REVIEWING last May 29th, but I know we still need to address the RFE Notice they sent on May 8th.

***We have attached the RFE letter below (2 pages)

Is it considered safer than in the past?

I'm a multi generational natural U.S. citizen and my wife of 6 years this past week is filipina that's been here 4 years in Aug and a U.S. citizen for nearly a year now. She has 11 and 14 year kids that were DQ 12/20/23. As is right now it seems they will likely be another 4-6 months just for their medical and interviews. Is there any options to get them here sooner and finish the process here in the states? Maybe K-4? The US Embassy in the Philippines is an absolute joke! It's insane to take nearly 2 years to get here. Even more insane that's it takes a year after being DQ'ed to get here. We've already tried expanding multiple times to no avail. My congressman helped expedite my wife's process (U.S Embassy in Singapore though), but has assigned me a different assistant he is useless. 6+ years married and still not together as a family is torture. Covid is somewhat to blame, but definitely not the only holdup.

With the wife in the Philippines right now and will return to the US in September at the 5 month mark. Showing off the new baby to the family. The end of September she will satisfy the 3 year LPR rule so really we could file the N-400 in a couple weeks.

The problem for us is the 90 rule. We travel a lot and full time in an RV. We have been receiving mail at a friend's house in Ohio for a year now. Are we ok to file in Ohio? What are they going to want as proof of this? Would a few credit card statements or bills suffice?

Also, if we file early, I doubt anything would happen in the first 90 days but in the unlikely event an interview came up before we got back, would we be able to delay that due to being out of the country?