By Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Polish Daily News and FI2W reporter

The first phone conversation between Polish president Lech Kaczynski and U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, which took place the Friday after the election, has already caused diplomatic confusion, as apparently they had different understandings of what was said.

The next day, President Kaczynski issued a statement on his Polish-language website saying that Obama “emphasized the importance of the strategic partnership of Poland and the United States and expressed hope in the continuation of political and military cooperation between our countries. He also said that the missile-defense project would continue.”

The last sentence, however, was removed the next day after a quick reaction from Obama’s staff.

“President Kaczynski raised missile defense, but President-elect Obama made no commitment on it,” said Obama’s senior foreign policy advisor Denis McDonough. “His position is, as it was throughout the campaign, that he supports deploying a missile-defense system when the technology is proved to be workable.”

The misunderstanding quickly became fuel for comments in the Polish media.

The second-largest Polish newspaper, left-leaning Gazeta Wyborcza, which is often critical of the conservative Kaczynski, interpreted a memo by Obama’s top foreign policy advisers Tony Lake and Susan Rice as a reaction to that conversation.

As reported by Politico, in the memo sent out to all of Obama’s foreign policy advisers, Lake and Rice wrote: “We ask each of you please do not under any circumstances speak to the press, any foreign officials, or embassies on behalf of the transition or President-elect Obama. (…) It would be highly damaging for foreign government or media to receive information that they believe falsely to represent the views of the President-elect.”

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Two of President-elect Obama’s early picks for his transition team and White House staff have stirred sharp debate among immigrant and ethnic groups in the US and overseas. One was the designation of Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel as the incoming White House chief of staff. The other, the selection of Indian American economist Sonal Shah, head of Global Development Initiatives at Google.org and a former Treasury Department and National Security Council official, to Obama’s transition team.

The choice of Emanuel caused some initial discomfort among two groups: pro-immigration advocates and pro-Palestinian groups. Demonstrating the fine line the president-elect has to walk in choosing a cabinet, Emanuel’s designation was greeted with optimism by Polish Americans, who make up a significant proportion of the population in Emanuel’s congressional district in Chicago.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Over forty percent of first-time New York City voters in this presidential election were foreign born, according to a study released by the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).

“Immigrants continue to swell the ranks of first-time voters in New York City and remain a driving force in the growth of the city’s electorate,” wrote the authors of the 2008 New Americans Exit Poll, professors Lorraine C. Minnite of Barnard College and John Mollenkopf, the director of the Graduate Center for Urban Studies at the City University of New York.

Immigrants were 41.1 percent of those voting for the first time. This continued a trend from the three previous presidential elections, when at least three in ten of immigrant voters were voting for the first time, according to the study.

Among foreign-born voters, a large proportion became citizens only recently. Nearly 18 percent achieved citizenship during the last two years, and an additional 25 percent had done so between 2000 and 2005.

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Less than twelve hours after the results of this weeks’ election were announced, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Wednesday that Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is leaving the agency by November 15.

Myers, who has led the agency since 2006, was the controversial face of the Bush administration’s enforcement-focused immigration policy. As Feet In 2 Worlds has reported,  recent large-scale ICE raids have been deeply unpopular, particularly among Latino voters and voters from other immigrant groups, and served to further tarnish the Republican brand. Post election analysis shows that Latinos gave Obama the winning edge in six states, helping to propel him into the White House and adding to Democratic majorities in Congress.

During Myers’ tenure, the agency doubled the number of undocumented immigrants swept up into deportation proceedings to reach a new record of 274,000 sent back to their home countries in 2006. The agency also saw its budget grow exponentially — and used it mostly for enforcement tactics including large-scale immigration raids that largely targeted undocumented workers rather than their employers.

Myers leaves amid speculation that she was the source of the leak to The Associated Press about the status of Obama’s undocumented Kenyan aunt only a few days before the general election. According to Rolling Stone’s Tim Wilkinson, Myers’ precipitous departure the day after the election and less than a week after the information on Obama’s aunt was leaked is likely no coincidence.

Earlier this week, Feet in 2 Worlds reported on how the immigration story of Obama’s family –including his aunt, who continues to live in Boston after her asylum claim was denied last year– reflects the situation of many mixed-status families in the U.S. The news was notable for its timing –the story broke the Friday before the election–as well as for the privileged information it disclosed.

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Reporter Pilar Marrero, a columnist for La Opinión newspaper in Los Angeles and Feet In 2 Worlds contributor, appeared yesterday on PRI’s nationally-syndicated radio show The World. She spoke with anchor Lisa Mullin about the impact of first-time Latino immigrant voters on the outcome of the presidential election.

Marrero reported –among other data– that Latino turnout held constant and that the Latino vote in Florida is shifting away from the Republicans.

You can listen to the segment here or you can visit the show’s website:

[audio:http://64.71.145.108/audio/11060811.mp3]

Diego Graglia, FI2W blog editor

Latin American immigrants became an important segment of the American electorate in this election, representing forty percent of the overall Hispanic vote, according to data released this afternoon by pro-immigrant organization America’s Voice.

Initial estimates indicate that about 10 million Hispanics voted in this election, maintaining their 8 percent share of the national electorate in a year in which more Americans voted than in previous contests. While the percentage was the same, the size of the Hispanic electorate increased considerably from the 7.6 million Latinos who cast their votes in 2004 and the almost six million who did so in 2000.

Mexicans, Dominicans, and immigrants from Central and South American countries “voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama for president,” according to pollster Sergio Bendixen, whose firm Bendixen and Associates conducted exit polls among Latino voters in Los Angeles and Miami. Bendixen said 78 percent of Latin American immigrant voters chose the Democratic candidate and 22 percent supported Republican John McCain.

Support for Obama was lower –61 percent– among U.S. born Hispanics, who were 50 percent of all Hispanic voters.

The remaining 10 percent of the Hispanic electorate is composed of two groups of non-immigrant Latinos: Cuban refugees and Puerto Rican U.S. citizens. While Puerto Ricans split 77 to 23 percent in favor of Obama, Bendixen reported, Cubans were the only subgroup to prefer John McCain, by a margin of 69 to 31 percent.

“Thirty-two percent of all Latin American immigrants who voted (in this election) were first-time voters,” Bendixen said today during a conference call with national media.

“There is no doubt that the immigration issue played a very important part in getting them involved in this presidential contest,” Bendixen added, indicating that the recent divisive immigration reform debate may well have energized many Latinos to vote this year, and helped Obama win the Presidency.

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JERSEY CITY, NJ – Suman Raghunathan, FI2W consultant

Over 63-million Americans voted for Barack Obama yesterday to be the nation’s 44^th President, giving him a 53% to 46% victory over John McCain.

Pundits are saying that Obama’s historic victory hinged on suburban white voters turning out for him, on older white women, and overwhelming levels of support from immigrant voters. Certainly many of these voters were Latino – according to the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), record Latino voter turnout nationwide in early voting was crucial to Obama’s victories in Virginia and Florida. NALEO is projecting over 9.4 million Latinos voted yesterday, and according to CNN News, 66% of Latinos supported Obama.

As we’ve written before at Feet in 2 Worlds, immigrant voters also include many other communities – particularly in the ‘salad’ of immigrant groups living in New York City.

The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund also saw large numbers of Asian American voters cast their vote yesterday. But what about immigrant voters as a whole?

Stay tuned for more details tomorrow on how these immigrants voted from the New York Immigration Coalition’s New Americans Exit Poll. Run by Barnard Political Science Professor Lorraine Minnite, the poll, the nation’s first and longest continuing effort to ask immigrant voters how and why they voted, reached 2500 voters at 32 polling sites in all five NYC boroughs. In addition to asking respondents the usual exit polling information about themselves – including if they were voting for the first time – the poll also will have information on the top issues that determined immigrants’ voting decisions, how they feel about the federal financial bailout, and any problems they encountered while voting.

We’ll have more details and analysis on immigrant voting patterns soon.