A qualifying E spouse is employment-authorized incident to valid E spousal status, with suitable status evidence. Confirm the actual status before relying on that permission.
Avoid assigning work before admission is checked
Record the spouse’s intended duties and I-94 classification and validity. The principal’s investment alone does not authorize another family member’s US work. Unmarried children under 21 may qualify as dependents, but E child status does not provide work authorization, even in the family business.
Derivative status depends on being unmarried and under twenty-one, and there is no conditional residence or immigrant petition running in the background to convert into something durable, because this category leads nowhere permanent on its own. The principal investor must separately show treaty nationality, qualifying national ownership of the enterprise, substantial capital irrevocably committed and at risk, a real nonmarginal operation, and development and direction through fifty percent ownership or operational control. The planning failure is building the operation around unpaid family labour that has not yet been authorized: a dispatch function staffed by one person whose own process is still outstanding is a single point of failure for the whole enterprise.