Last Friday, November 19, the House passed a historic bill that would benefit about 6.5 million people who have been in the U.S. since before 2011. Of this estimate, about 2 million immigrants would be eligible to eventually obtain permanent status as immediate relatives of U.S. citizens.

The proposal includes granting a temporary work permit and a deportation protection program known as “Parole” that allows people to stay in the country for five years with the option to extend it for another five years, which Democrats consider to be stronger prospects in the Senate.

The bill would bring back unused family and work visas since 1992, and would allow some foreign nationals to expedite applications to adjust permanent resident status and circumvent some numerical limits on visas, including per-country limits that have left hundreds of thousands in limbo.

The bill would also allow diversity visa lottery winners who were unable to finish their process or enter the U.S. due to Covid-19 or Trump-era immigration restrictions to reapply.

It would also provide about $2.8 billion to USCIS.The measure still faces an uncertain fate between the Senate and the House. If passed, it would be the most significant change in decades to begin to fix our broken immigration system.