The New York City Council voted to create a municipal identification card Thursday afternoon.
The card will provide documentation for the nearly half-million immigrants living in the city without proper papers.
The ID card will allow those people to open a bank account, get a library card, rent an apartment and have something to show police if they get stopped. The cards would only be available to people who can prove that they live in the city, but how that will be proven still needs to be worked out by city agencies.
Mayor Bill de Blasio set aside more than $8 million for the new program, which is expected to be up and running by the end of the year.