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Hypothetical example: a Val-des-Monts owner of a well-drilling and water-treatment company is the EB-5 investor. His wife has a daughter from an earlier marriage who was 16 when they married and is now 19, and together they have a son of 6. The petition covers a spouse and unmarried children under 21, and a stepchild qualifies as a child only if the marriage creating the relationship occurred before the child turned 18. The dates on the marriage and birth certificates, not the family’s own sense of itself, decide who is a derivative.
Who counts as a child on the petition
For immigration purposes a child is an unmarried person under 21, and the definition includes a stepchild provided the marriage creating the step relationship took place before the child reached 18. In the hypothetical the marriage occurred when the daughter was 16, so she is the investor’s stepchild and a derivative on his EB-5 petition; had the marriage come after her eighteenth birthday, she would have needed her own route regardless of how long she had lived in the household. The son is a child by birth. Each derivative needs a passport and the certificate proving the relationship, and the wife needs the marriage certificate plus proof that her earlier marriage ended, since a valid current marriage is the foundation of both her status and the stepchild link.
The daughter’s age and the Child Status Protection Act
Derivative eligibility ends at 21, but the Child Status Protection Act can protect a child whose age advances while the immigrant petition is pending. The child’s CSPA age is calculated by subtracting the petition’s pending time from the child’s age when an immigrant visa becomes available, and the child generally must seek to acquire permanent residence within one year after availability. For a 19-year-old, the result depends on the exact petition-pending period and visa-availability date; age at filing alone does not establish protection. The family should file promptly, keep the daughter unmarried until residence is granted if she wishes to remain a derivative, and calculate CSPA eligibility from the category and country-of-chargeability dates.
Each person’s activity after residence, and the two-year condition
On admission all four become conditional permanent residents for two years. The wife, a home-care nurse, may seek state licensure and work; the daughter may study or work; the son attends school. Unlike nonimmigrant dependants, none of them is restricted from employment. In the ninety days before the second anniversary the investor files Form I-829 for the family, showing the capital sustained and the jobs created; derivatives are included, and a spouse or child may file separately where the family has separated. The daughter’s conditional residence continues past 21 once granted, because the age limit applies to obtaining derivative status, not to keeping residence. If the stepchild relationship is ever questioned, the dated marriage certificate answers it.
What else is on your mind?
Is a matching job title enough for TN?Can years of experience replace a degree for TN?Can my own U.S. company employ me under TN?Can my spouse work if I hold TN status?Editorial source review: 2026-09-07. General preparation guidance, not an individual assessment.