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VAUDREUIL-DORION · L-1B FIELD GUIDE

Can the family rely on an employer’s benefits package as immigration permission?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

A benefits package and dependent immigration status are different. Employer coverage or relocation support does not itself grant entry, residence or work permission to a spouse or child.

Review the actual status behind the offered benefit

A qualifying L spouse needs valid dependent status and appropriate spouse-specific I-94 evidence for incident-to-status work authorization. An accompanying L child must be unmarried and under 21 and does not receive that spouse authorization, regardless of benefits eligibility.

An L-2 spouse is employment-authorized incident to status, which does not depend on whether the principal holds L-1A or L-1B. Relocation assistance and health coverage are administrative offers from an employer, not evidence submitted to any immigration authority. Ask the employer directly whether a spouse's or child's paperwork has actually been filed, and request the resulting receipt or approval notice once available, rather than assuming enrollment in a benefits plan means the process already happened. Confirm exactly what admission notation a spouse actually receives, since that notation is what an employer later checks for work eligibility, not a benefits enrollment date. Treat any deadline set by human resources as separate from an immigration filing deadline; missing one does not affect the other. A frequent mistake is delaying the dependent filing because coverage already began, leaving the household without confirmed status once questions about eligibility arise.