Asylum

Often asylum seekers want protection not just for themselves but for their families. Anyone seeking asylum may include a spouse and children under the age of 21 on the I-589 form. Derivative asylum is designed to give that same option to people who have already been granted asylum. Stepchildren are eligible if the applicant and spouse married before the child's eighteenth birthday; adopted children must have been adopted before their sixteenth birthday and the applicant must have been a legal parent for at least two years. Asylum seekers have two years from the date they are granted asylum to apply for derivative asylum.