As part of an “internationalization” plan to increase funding, the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) is seeking to attract students from the U.S. and the Dominican Republic, reports El Nuevo Día. The public university, which is facing a five-year $204 million cut by the supervision board governing the island, has already done two orientation campaigns: One at a Bronx high school targeting low-income, Spanish-speaking students, and another one in Santo Domingo private schools, offering lower tuition fees and proximity to upper-class Dominicans who plan to study abroad. Online applications have been available since Nov. 14, and so far 29 U.S. students have applied (six from New York). Link to original story →

While thousands of Puerto Ricans returned to the island after taking refuge in the U.S. following hurricanes Irma and María, new data shows that more are leaving, continuing a longtime depopulation trend, El Nuevo Día reports. Between April and July, 6,910 more people left than came in through the island’s three main airports. The first trimester of 2018, by contrast, offered a net entry of 83,317 people, or 40 percent of the 211,695 who left during the previous hurricane season. According to census estimates, 431,942 people have left Puerto Rico since 2010, and by 2050 the island’s population (at 3.7 million in 2017) could barely top 2 million. Link to original story →

Members of the Jamaican diaspora are meeting today, Nov. 17 and Nov. 18 at the Morrow Center in Morrow, Georgia for the Jamaica USA Diaspora Summit, reports Caribbean Today. Dr. Rupert Francis, Wayne Golding and Akelia Maitland are hosting the summit. “Often times our focus is on what is happening in our homeland of Jamaica while it remains clear that as Jamaican diasporans we are not organized enough where we live to exercise any significant power of influence over our future here,” organizers said. Link to original story →

"Undocumented black migrants are building an informal network to help each other navigate their uncertain immigration status in the U.S.," reports Law at the Margins in a story that's part of a series called "We the Immigrants" produced by its Community Based News Room. “We are so few that we haven’t built the mass movements that nonblack immigrants have,” says Nekessa Opoti, a Kenyan immigrant who works with UndocuBlack, an organization assisting undocumented black people in the U.S. “Systems don’t work for us, so we rely on each other.” Link to original story →