Are You Experiencing Security Clearance Processing Delays?

Ouch! Hopefully anon1989 is correct and it simply isn’t going through OPM. You can call OPM directly at 724-794-5612 extension 7000 and ask for the status of your investigation. Normally they can only tell you if the investigation is still open or closed, but if it doesn’t exist at all they would presumably be able to tell you as well. Good luck sorting that all out…

Yeah, that’s what I’m hoping. I guess I should have figured that out before assuming OPM was handling it. I emailed my sponsor and asked who is handling it, so hopefully they get back soon. Thanks!

Hi, how can I find out of OPM did my investigation or not? It depends by what company offered the job?

I would ask your contact at the company sponsoring you for the clearance.

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I contacted my Congressman three weeks ago asking them if they could check up on the status of my clearance. They asked for documentation of the job offer and my background and I had to sign the release allowing them to share the personal info I had given them with the OPM. Friday, October 6, I the Congressional aide forwarded me a letter from the OPM that they were expediting my investigation and will pass along that the Congressman is interested in my clearance to the adjudicators.
I was informed today, October 9, that my clearance had been granted and I needed to choose a starting date. Maybe it is a coincidence that I get a letter from OPM and my clearance is granted the next business day, but I have to think the Congressman’s letter helped. The Congressman is on his first term and does not have any defense or intel committee assignments so he had no more leverage than anyone else,

Timeline:
Submitted application for Secret clearance June 12, 2017
OPM got my application from DoD requesting the investigation on June 20, 2017
Interim was granted Aug 17, 2017
Contacted Congressman’s office Sept 21, 2017
Heard back that OPM was expediting my investigation Oct 6 2017
Informed my Secret clearance was granted Oct 9, 2017

Total of 85 working days between application submission and full Secret granted.

I have lived in the same residence for the last 16 years, I had some potentially troublesome foreign travel (two trips to Ramallah, Palestine, to see my Mother in-law, a US citizen), other than that pretty bland, non-Vet, Given the timelines that others have posted I believe contacting the Congressman was well worth it, at the very least I do not think it extended the timeline any.

Hope this helps,
wade

I don’t know if this is still happening, but for a while they were holding cases and releasing them to adjudications slowly in an attempt to “manage” the workload. I don’t think anyone can really tell when adjudication actually begins, meaning when your case is actually assigned to a specific adjudicator and not in some ‘pending’ state.

Congrats! That is a speedy timeline.

How should one proceed with contacting your local congressman? Would it be more effective to write a letter and mail or would it be okay to email them? Maybe a phone call to the office?

Look them up on the internet. They have websites and typically, have online forms for this kind of matter.

do you think that being married to a resident will delay my clearance till my husband become a citizen?

Thank you, all the FOIA phone line will tell me is that it is pending. I have contacted both my senator and congressman and signed the privacy releases, so let’s see…

Today, I contacted my US Senator because I am approaching the 6 month timeline since I submitted my application. Hopefully I hear something back within the next few weeks.

6 months since your application to the job or security form? Seem’s a bit preemptive if it’s only been 6 months.

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I guess you can say that. However I am mainly concerned because I have been asking for updates and inquiring about what the process is for any changes that need to occur and I do not get a response. I am new to this process and reached out to someone I feel can me through this process.

Tossing out another data point: a new hire with my defense contractor employer got his Secret clearance in about six months. He’s a new grad and has not moved very much so it is possible that one investigator did the whole thing. Now we’ve had other people with “simple” cases take much longer. But that is the third or fourth person who has cleared recently in about six mos. And others are still waiting over a year,

The thing that I found out that works best, forget that you are even in this process. There is so much stress that you will end up putting on yourself and there is nothing you can do to alleviate it. Email your FSO once a month at most. They typically don’t answer anymore so don’t expect them too. In their eyes, its been the same broken process for 2-4 years and they don’t want to explain it over and over. It WILL run its course. Get a hobby and distract yourself :slight_smile:

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Agreed, keep your day job and continue on with your life. If it happens, be glad you get to work in the cleared world, don’t expect it. It is a privilege, not a right.

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Unfortunately this is just a situation with a radical lack of transparency–I submitted my eQIP in early Sept 2016 and have received exactly one unsolicited communication from anyone associated with my job since then, a letter around the 200 day mark asking me to affirm I was still interested in the position (and in hindsight this was probably a response triggered by me e-mailing someone and asking about the job’s status in light of the hiring freeze). My (infrequent) requests for info from my FSO have received responses that boil down to ‘still open, be patient, don’t know anything else’. The fact that people are contacting congress just to find out where they are in the process–something that they reasonably should be able to do on a website or, at worst, via a quick call to OPM–is a strong indication of just how utterly bonkers this whole situation is.

That mean trying to find out about the status, through congressman , make upset adjudicators?

No, it just falls on deaf ears. If its in adjudication there is not much that can happen to speed up investigation (Its done). After all my time here I haven’t heard a story where a Congressman/woman was able to speed up the Adjudication process explicitly.

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