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PICTURE BUTTE · L-1B FIELD GUIDE

Can our teenager work at the American plant during a Picture Butte transfer?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

No. A child admitted as a derivative may attend school but is not employment-authorized on that basis, and that does not change because the employer is the family's own company. Only the spouse is employment-authorized incident to L-2 status.

Working for the family firm is still working

Hypothetical example: the engineer's seventeen-year-old has spent summers sweeping the Picture Butte shop and expects to do the same at the American plant. The relationship to the employer makes no difference: employment requires a lawful basis, and derivative status for a child does not provide one, whether the work is paid, unpaid, casual or seasonal. School attendance is permitted.

The spouse's position is different, since employment authorization comes with L-2 status itself. Derivative eligibility ends at twenty-one, so a seventeen-year-old and a five-year assignment should be looked at together. There are also child labour and safety rules in an industrial setting that apply independently of immigration status, and a processing or fabrication floor is exactly where they bite.