JEROME POSNER – LETTER ABOUT HIS IMMIGRATION FROM HENRY B. HAZARD TO JAMES V. ABBOTT – JULY 17, 1939

DOCUMENT: posner-jerome-letter-about-immigration-hazard-to-abbott-1939-07-17.pdf

NOTES:

• Document received by mail from the USCIS Genealogy Program.
• This 1939 letter is to James V. Abbott, 7910 Falkland Drive, Silver Spring, Md. from Henry B. Hazard "on behalf of the commissioner."
• I believe (based on web searches) that Henry B. Hazard, who wrote the letter, was the Assistant Commissioner, Research and Education Division, U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice. At the time (1939), the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization was James Houghteling.
• From the first sentence ("Reference is made again to your letter of [...]") it appears that this letter was in reply to a letter in which James V. Abbott had asked for information about Jerome's immigration. And it appears this reply was not the first reply.
• I have not been able to determine who James V. Abbott was, or what organization was at 7910 Falkland Drive, Silver Spring, Md., or why he had requested proof of Jerome's birth / immigration / naturalization. Given the proximity of Silver Spring to Washington, D.C., might Abbott have been with the federal government? -- and might the government have been investigating Jerome for political reasons?
• The letter refers to Jerome's original name as "Eremey" -- it says:

  Reference is made again to your letter of May 15, 1939 [...] in regard to one Jerome (Eremey) Posner [...] This office has a record of the arrival of one Erina Puezner, age 27, at New York, on July 6, 1913 [...].

  Presumably "Erina" is a transcription of the name in the handwritten ship's manifest, which appears to say "Erma"?