L-2 dependents & employment

My husband is being transferred to the USA on an L-1 visa, and i understand that as his spouse i will receive and L-2 as well as our daughters, aged 17 and 19 who will also receive an L-2 visa. Here is the question.I have read that i, as a spouse am able to gain employment, but my daughters are not. Does anyone have any information on how i can go about getting my daughters employment? They are planning to attend college when we get to the States, not under an F1, but as permanent residents, as my husbands company will be initiating the paperwork for a green card for him after we arrive south of the border. Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks in Advance
Jo-Anne

Hi Jo-Anne,

My family has almost the same situation as yours. Can you tell me how things worked out for you? Thank you.

Green card adjustments of status from L1 (or other work) visas will take several years, your eldest daughter will age out before that is even close to being completed. I'm not even sure your 19 y/o is eligible for the derivative visa now, as they are specifically for "minor" children. At 19, she is legally an adult. You may want to confirm that she is eligible.

The age limit is 21 for dependents to be included, but I don't think it matters because even if you fell into EB-1, it's very unlikely everything would be approved before she hit 21 (and most likely it would be EB-3 Skilled Worker, so by that point your other daughter would be over 21 too). So then you'd have to sponsor her on I-130 which would also take years. Many years in fact, as an LPR, not even sure how long but I'm guessing nearly a decade going by the visa bulletins. Becoming US citizens and amending the application might shave off a couple of years.

Realistically if you've got children in their late teens they would have to go F-1 to stay in the US. Which also means you have to pay out-of-state tuition, which sucks.

Let's take an example so I can illustrate it more clearly.

You enter the US as L-1 with L-2 dependents. One of your children is 18 years old at the time of entry and wants to go to college.

As an L-2 dependent they can study at college in the US. They might qualify for instate tuition in certain States, due to a court ruling in California that said an H-4 dependent was a resident for education purposes. However in most States they wouldn't.

When they turn 21 they no longer qualify for L-2 and would have to change status to F-1 to stay in college. As that classification isn't associated with your status, almost certainly you've got to pay foreign tuition fees.

Your employer is willing to sponsor you for LPR status and files an I-140 for you immediately after you enter the US. You fall into EB-3 Skilled Worker (the most common). This takes 3.5 years for the visa number to come up (very roughly) and roughly a year to adjust status (might be shorter). So let's say four to five years after you enter you are now an LPR.

By this point your child is 22-23 years old and has finished college and their OPT employment authorization has run out. They basically have no status in the US at this point and must leave the US. You can file an I-130 for them, but this will take the best part of a decade to process and while you are an LPR they cannot marry otherwise they don't qualify anymore. Once you qualify for US citizenship (5 years) you can apply to amend the petition (to speed it up slightly) and you can sponsor them whether they're married or not.