The marriage equality made possible with Friday’s Supreme Court ruling is likely to lead to a boom in the number of people applying for U.S. citizenship.

Five years ago, none of the 40,000 binational and dual non-citizen same-sex couples in the U.S. had the same opportunities for immigration as different-sex couples, according to a 2011 report by the Williams Institute. The American immigration system didn’t officially recognize same-sex marriages, and a U.S. citizen in a same-sex marriage couldn’t petition for permanent residence or expedited citizenship for his or her spouse.

But in June 2013, the Supreme Court ruled Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, meaning the federal government had to recognize same-sex marriages legalized by states. After the ruling, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano directed U.S. citizenship and immigration authorities to “review immigration visa petitions filed on behalf of a same-sex spouse in the same manner as those filed on behalf of an opposite-sex spouse.”

That means the number of applications for immigrant visas and citizenship could spike in the coming months as same-sex couples rush to tie the knot following Friday’s historic Supreme Court ruling.

Tens of thousands of children could also be affected. The 40,000 couples who were ineligible to utilize the same immigration laws as different-sex couples just a few years ago are raising almost 25,000 children, according to the Williams Institute report. The countries most represented within these couples are Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom. Almost half of them are Latino and 14 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander.

The Williams Institute

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Marriage Equality’s $2.6 Billion Windfall (Vocativ)

Here’s How Quickly America Came To Embrace Same-Sex Marriage (Vocativ)