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GRAND BAY-WESTFIELD · E-2 FIELD GUIDE

Can a Grand Bay-Westfield E-2 investor's adult son join the business in the United States?

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THE DIRECT ANSWER

Not as a derivative. Derivative status covers the spouse and unmarried children under 21, so a twenty-two-year-old needs his own basis, which could be an E-2 employee petition if he holds the treaty nationality and the role qualifies.

An adult child needs his own route

Hypothetical example: a Grand Bay-Westfield couple assume their twenty-two-year-old son, who has run a chipper crew for them for three years, will simply come along and work. He cannot do so as a dependant, because he is over the age limit. The route worth examining is E-2 employment in his own right: a Canadian citizen may be employed by a treaty enterprise of the same nationality in a supervisory or executive role, or in a position requiring skills essential to the enterprise's operation.

Crew leadership with specific equipment and safety qualifications can support an essential-skills argument if it is documented rather than asserted. That is a separate application with its own evidence. The investor's wife, by contrast, is employment-authorized incident to E-2 spouse status and could work inside or outside the business.