The principal’s qualifying role needs its own analysis, separate from a family member’s employment.
Keep participation, family eligibility and jobs distinct
Eligible derivatives generally include a spouse and unmarried children under 21, with individual CSPA review; immigrant-visa derivatives enter with or after the principal. The spouse’s job also cannot be counted among the investor’s required qualifying EB-5 jobs.
Analyze three issues separately: the principal investor’s policy or management participation, each relative’s derivative eligibility, and which employees count toward job creation. A spouse and unmarried children under 21 may generally derive through EB-5, subject to individual age and admissibility review, but a spouse’s work cannot replace the principal’s required role. Employment of the investor, spouse, or children also does not count among the ten qualifying full-time US positions. The family should retain lawful source-and-path evidence for the required capital and understand that residence is conditional for two years and Form I-829 must be filed during the 90-day period immediately preceding its second anniversary. Choose Form I-526E for a regional-center structure or Form I-526 for a direct one.
Hypothetical example: The owner of a hardware wholesaler near Saint-David-de-Falardeau invests through a regional center, while his wife accepts a job with the project administrator. Her employment must rest on her own work authorization and is excluded from his ten-job calculation. He should still exercise the policy rights in the partnership agreement, file the appropriate I-526E record, and list their unmarried nineteen-year-old accurately for derivative assessment.