State of New York
County of Kings
Affidavit
I, Rakhman ………., being duly sworn, depose and say:
1. I am making this affidavit in support of the application of my wife, Eliza
………., for adjustment of her U.S. immigration status to that of a
permanent resident alien. More specifically, I am seeking to explain a
statement I made at a Stokes interview of my wife and me that was
conducted on April 14, 2003, at the offices of the Bureau of Citizenship
and Immigration Services (BCIS) at 26 Federal Plaza, Room 8-100, New
York, N.Y. 10278, by District Adjudications Officer John ………..
2. During the interview, Officer ………. asked me if I had brought to the
interview a lease with respect to the apartment that I share with my wife –
Apt. .. at .. Voorhies Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11235 – and I told him that I
had not. He then asked me in whose name the lease was and I told him it
was in my name. He asked me to mail or bring to him (or arrange for my
attorney, Oscar Abraham Jaeger, to mail or bring to him) a copy of the
lease as soon as possible.
3. In compliance with Officer ……….’s request, I am attaching to this
affidavit as Exhibits 1A, 1B, and 1C, and making a part of this affidavit,
copies of three leases that pertain to my tenancy of apartment 1M. For
the reason given in numbered paragraph 7 below, all three leases are in
my daughter’s name: Clara ……….. The first lease, a copy of which is
attached hereto as Exhibit 1A, is dated February 23, 2000. It is the initial
lease between the landlord and my daughter and is signed by the
landlord and by her. As I explain in numbered paragraph 7 below, I took
over that lease a few months after its commencement. The second
lease, a copy of which is attached hereto as Exhibit 1B, is a renewal
lease dated October 16, 2000. It is signed by the landlord and by me.
The third lease, which is the one in effect now, is dated March 21, 2002
and is entitled “Rider to Lease.” For the reason provided in numbered
paragraphs 7 through 9 below, it constitutes the reduction of an annual
lease to a month to month lease. The only copy I have of this month to
month lease, which is the one I am providing, is unsigned by both the
landlord and myself.
4. Officer ………. also asked me to mail or bring to him (or arrange for my
attorney to do so) a copy of the IRS Form 1099 that I filed with my 2002
federal tax return. In compliance with that request, I am attaching to this
affidavit as Exhibit 2, and making a part of this affidavit, a copy of that
Form 1099.
5. The specific reason I am making this affidavit is to explain the
discrepancy between my statement to Officer ………. That the apartment
lease is in my name and the actual state of affairs, which is that the lease
is in my daughter’s name.
6. The checks that my wife and I use to pay the rent every month have only
my name on them. They are old checks that were issued to me when I
first opened up this checking account, more than a year before I first met
Eliza. I usually sign these checks; occasionally, Eliza signs them in my
name. Attached as Exhibit 3 to this affidavit, and made a art hereof, are a
selection of original cancelled rent checks for rents we have paid to the
landlord in the past two years: the sample consists of three checks from
2001, three from 2002, and three from 2003. Furthermore, I first moved
into this apartment several months before I even met Eliza. For these
reasons, I am capable of thinking of it as my apartment when the word
lease comes up, even though it is very much an apartment I share with
my wife. This feeling of ownership is so ingrained, that I sometimes
forget what I actually know quite well, namely that this apartment is
actually in my daughter’s name.
7. The reason that this apartment is in Clara’s name is that she was the one
who was originally looking to get an apartment in this building, three years
ago. When she got this apartment, the lease was naturally made out in
her name. However, after she lived here for a few months, she decided
to move into her mother’s apartment. I liked my daughter’s apartment
and decided to move into it myself, taking over her lease. Legally, I
believe I was allowed to take over the apartment, so that was never a
problem. The problem I am having with my landlord concerns the dog
that I owned at the time I moved in, which I brought with me when I
moved in and which continues to live here with Eliza and me. Keeping a
dog in our apartment is technically against the building’s rules, even
though many people keep dogs in this apartment building. The building
management has written several requests to me (actually, these requests
have been directed to my daughter, as she is still formally the tenant
here), asking me to get rid of my dog.
8. I have not complied with the management’s requests for several reasons.
The main one is that my dog is quiet and rarely barks and so cannot be a
nuisance to my neighbors. Also, as I said before, building management is
not enforcing this rule against other dog owners. Furthermore, I love this
dog, as does my wife, and we would very much regret having to separate
from him. A final consideration is that my wife and I are planning to move
soon to another apartment building with a different landlord, so it does not
make any sense to separate from our dog in the meantime.
9. One way building management expresses its displeasure at our noncompliance with their get-rid-of-your-dog request is by refusing to put the
apartment lease in my name or in the name of my wife and myself. I
have gone to management several times requesting a name change and
they have always refused, citing my noncompliance. Another way
building management has expressed its displeasure is by issuing a rider
to our lease, the aforementioned and hereto-attached Exhibit 1C, which
has reduced us to a tenancy on a month to month basis.
10. Right after the completion of our interview with Officer ………., as my wife
and I and our attorney were leaving the building, I suddenly remembered
that the lease was in my daughter’s name and not in my own. I
immediately told Mr. Jaeger of that fact, explained the circumstances to
him, and asked him what my wife and I should do. Mr. Jaeger had two
suggestions. The first suggestion was that I try one more time, despite
the apparent hopelessness of this project, to get the lease put in my
name. If I should succeed, then the lease would match what I told Officer
………. and I would not have to explain any discrepancy, as there would
be none. The second suggestion by Mr. Jaeger was that, if I should fail to
get the lease changed, I should provide Officer ………. with an affidavit
explaining the discrepancy. I have followed Mr. Jaeger’s counsel to the
letter.
11. As can be inferred from the existence of this affidavit, I was unable to get
our apartment lease put into my name. I spoke with the landlord’s agent
on April 14, 2003, and she told me that he would have to check with
building management before approving any name change. She also
added that it would take some time before he could get back to me, as I
was making my request at a very busy time for him: he is an orthodox
Jew and my request came while he was in the middle of complicated
preparations for the lengthy Jewish holiday of Passover (although I am
not orthodox, I am Jewish, and as such I’m familiar with, and can verify,
the truth of the landlord’s statement about the complicated preparations
for keeping a kosher Passover). Eliza and I are not interested in waiting
another week or, more likely, additional weeks if not months, for the
landlord’s response to our name-change request, especially since we are
99% sure he will give us a negative response anyway.
____________________
Rakhman
Sworn to before me this
day of April, 2003
____________________
Notary Public