Only if your spouse holds a status or authorization that permits it in their own right. Your pending petition gives dependants nothing. A spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one may later qualify as derivatives when you reach the immigrant visa or adjustment stage, if they are then eligible and admissible.
Each dependant's permission is their own
Track your spouse's and children's status separately from yours, including expiry dates and school enrolment conditions. Age protection for a child approaching twenty-one is fact-specific and cannot be promised in advance, so raise it with counsel early rather than at the interview. Each family member is assessed for admissibility individually, and one member's issue does not automatically follow the household.
The assumption that causes the most damage is that a household moves as one file. It does not: each person is assessed for eligibility and admissibility individually, and one member’s issue does not automatically transfer to the others. The record that keeps this visible is a per-person page listing that person’s status document, its expiry, their permitted activities and their date of birth, kept beside the principal’s chronology.
Age is the fact most often left to memory. State the position without promising anything: a spouse and unmarried children under twenty-one may later qualify as derivatives if they are then eligible and admissible, and protection for a child approaching twenty-one is fact-specific. Hypothetical example: a reinsurance investor’s file carries three separate pages, and the child’s page is the one that changes the sequencing.