The family needs continuing valid status based on the principal’s qualifying employment, not merely completion of the course. If the employee’s assignment ends or changes, review the effect on both the principal and dependents.
Plan the post-training period
Eligible spouses and unmarried children under 21 may hold L-2. Eligible spouses can work incident to valid status with appropriate documentation; dependent children cannot work through it. Align housing and school plans with actual authorised periods and the supported next phase of work.
Do not assume a completed teaching assignment gives the household an independent right to remain. Households tend to learn about a change to the principal’s assignment last, by which time a school place or a spouse’s job has already been arranged around the old plan. Build the habit of telling the family about any change to the principal’s status, employer or end date on the day it becomes known, because dependent status tracks the principal and adjusts to nothing on its own.
Hypothetical example: a subscription-box fulfilment employer shortens a specialist’s assignment while the spouse is midway through a hiring process that assumed a longer horizon; nothing about the spouse’s eligibility survives the principal’s status independently, so the offer calls for a candid conversation rather than an optimistic one. Ask counsel what each dependant’s position becomes under the revised facts.