An eligible spouse and unmarried children under 21 may qualify as derivatives, subject to the applicable rules and individual circumstances. Age protection can be fact-specific, so a child nearing 21 deserves early review. Do not assume that filing the principal’s petition guarantees every family member’s eligibility, arrival date or work authorization.
Review the household as individual immigration cases
List birth dates, marital relationships, places of birth, current locations and relevant immigration history for each person. Discuss any age-protection issue before using an expected timeline to make school or housing commitments. Separate derivative eligibility from when residence or another work-authorizing status would actually begin.
If a family member plans to arrive later, ask how that affects the required steps and document validity instead of presuming one shared timetable. Draw the household as individual cases on one sheet, with each person's date of birth, place of birth, current status and any prior United States immigration history. A child approaching twenty-one deserves a dated note recording when the question should be reviewed, and that review should be scheduled rather than remembered.
Where a family member is likely to travel or study during the process, discuss what that would require before anything is booked. The point of the sheet is that each person's questions become visible as their own, instead of being folded into the principal's file where they are easy to overlook.