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Nebraska For Puerto Rico plan evacuee support

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Joel Ortiz is excited his five family members in Puerto Rico will finally move to Nebraska next month.

"After losing everything, and knowing it is going to take at least five months for power, they saw no other choice but to come here."

Other families in Nebraska who have relatives in Puerto Rico want to bring them here, but the process hasn't been easy.

"They don't qualify for refugee status, so we are trying to see if we can treat them as evacuees."

 This morning Nebraska For Puerto Rico met with Senator Deb Fischer's office with hopes of forming a plan. 

"In the state of Florida within two weeks of the hurricane 20 thousand Puerto Ricans migrated to the state, to date 58 thousand."

Victoria Leuthold says Florida had no plan in place for evacuees and the sudden influx put a strain on the state's resources.

“So how can we give them the best foot start off the ground so we are not another Florida?"

The group is passing out petitions that would support an evacuee plan for Nebraska.

"Even for those who didn't get hit the worst, they lost their livelihood, their means of income, so those are opportunities that we can provide."

Puerto Rico is US territory so they say they hope the federal government will help these US citizens just as they have with others facing devastation.

"Those who move off the island and come here are not going to qualify for refugee assistance because they are us citizens."