If I Have a Green Card, Are My Wife and Children Also Covered?

If you have a green card, it does not automatically carry over to one’s spouse and/or family or children. More often than not it does, but it’s not an automatic. So if the head of the household – for instance, the principal alien – obtains a green card, then usually part and parcel of that application process and procedure is that their spouse and their minor children will also get it. Furthermore, if the minor children have now become adults, they may actually lose the ability to derive their green card through the parent that’s getting it unless there are exceptions. So it’s really a case-by-case basis and it depends on what the status of their parent is, when the application was submitted, and whether or not the type of application allows for the aged out child to also continue to be considered a child for that particular application and still obtain their green card.