Are You Experiencing Security Clearance Processing Delays?

I am in the same boat as you are. BI complete and pending adjudication as of Jan2017.
Employer FSO can only see that its pending.

I have not heard from anyone at the DOD CAF asking for clarifications etc…

Although it is true that complicated cases will take more time, it is not necessarily true that a case that seems to be dragging on forever is complicated.

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Have any of your previous employers/landlords/personal references been interviewed by a background investigator yet?

Hey,

Just wanted to give in my info here. Seems like my investigation is going fast so I am cautiously hopeful. Feel free to crush my hope lol. Im getting investigated for CACI (case reviewer) I got a call yesterday and an agent will interview me and my employers and coworkers this Thursday at my place of work. Hopefully that means good news for the rest of people going into security work with (Expedited background checks). I heard that these days its not really as fast as it used to be.

Submitted Eqip: 11/20/17
Interview 12/7/17

No, completely clean record.

My investigation went pretty quickly… Took a long time to get adjudicated though…

But the process does seem to be speeding up lately. We’ve had a couple folks get their final secret in about six months. Yet others are still waiting.

Yeah I have been on these forums for months and saw all the horror stories of wait. I gotta say though CACI has been on the ball with everything. Really quick and organized with everything, at least branches in the East.

Yeah . . . I spent about five months in adjudication, received an SOR, responded, it took a month to receive a FORM, about a month for the judges decision and about a month for them to decide to appeal.

So, I waited about eight months after my investigation closed. Of course, I waited six months for my investigation to START . . .

Ok, I was just brainstorming. I think if your case is going to be favorably adjudicated after investigation then the decision comes fairly quickly. I think if there are things that may be a concern, they go to different levels of review, which take time. In my case I received an SOR, so I didn’t hear anything for 18 months after my Investigation was completed. So 18 months of adjudication. I think that is because it goes through additional channels when they intend to deny.

That’s funny Mike . . . If I were designing the system, based on the current rules, it would be the exact opposite!

I’m not saying that you’re wrong just that I would do it differently.

The presumption is to deny everyone. “clearly in the interests of national security” . . . If it’s NOT clear, their attitude is to deny and then let the applicant have the opportunity to show why it IS in the interest of national security to approve.

So, I would say that the denials should happen quickly, and move to an SOR, while the approvals should take longer . . . Just my thought of course.

BTW: I think that the standard is backward and that they may even be applying it backward.

I agree with you Ed, it should be the other way around. I think from my case and yours, it proves it isn’t. I’m not really complaining though, they have a tough job vetting all these applicants. At the end of the day, if it’s meant to be it will happen and there isn’t much we can do to change the length of time to process.

My problem is that I was out of work when I started the process. Most of my career, I’ve been a non-cleared, IBM mainframe programmer. That job market has changed substantially over the last 15 years. I was laid off from a contract in April of 2016 and interviewed for my cleared position in June 2016.

I still haven’t started my cleared position. Of course, I eventually found a another mainframe position, but all told, the delay cost me somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000! It also contributed greatly to the financial issues raised in my SOR!

The government may have chump change like that sitting around . . . I don’t!

Here’s my timeline:

06/2016: Job offer, eQIP submitted
07/2016: Polygraph
09/2016: Contact interviewed
02/2017: Background investigator interviewed myself and others
03/2017: BI interviews another person
04/2017: Sent to Adjudication
05/2017: Adjudication requests more info on mental health issues.
06/2017: All information returned to them. One doctor said my taking SSRIs meant that my judgment was impaired, but it was managed and without problems. Other doctors did not say it impaired judgment
12/2017: Have not heard anything since. Been told it’s still in adjudication.

Going on 19 months now. I’m applying to graduate schools to keep my career moving forward.

Yeah this whole process has cost me a ton of money too. My current workplace wanted to give me a big raise and promotion but once the BI came knocking and they knew I was eventually leaving (even if it was a year or 2 from now) they nixed that. I ended up telling my boss that I actually dropped out of the IC job I was going for so I could get the 30k raise they wanted to give me despite still being in the process. I felt bad for lying but at the same time I need to make sure that in case I’m denied I havent wasted 2 years at work. I just hope that doesnt cause an issue when the re investigation happens 5 years from now if I’m cleared and they go back to talk to my old boss haha. Oh well.

I feel like this process would be way better if they were forced to make a decision quickly. If there’s any doubt then just deny people and let them go on with their lives/ appeal if they want to have the longer process.

In other discussions some applicants reached out to their senators for help in expediting the clearance process, and it seemed to work. Are there any potential downsides of contacting my representative (especially one that is on the Senate Intel. Committee) to help shake up the process? Especially if my sponsoring agency is in the intelligence community?

It can’t hurt. After having heard nothing for a year, I sent a letter to my Senator (who is also on the Intel Committee though I’m going for a DoD job) at the end of August. The reply from the hiring agency to the Senator’s office–a completely unenlightening form letter–was dated on October 5th (though I didn’t get it until much later), and I was finally contacted by a background investigator about a month after that. The letter might have prompted someone to move my file forward, or it might have had no effect whatsoever, but either way the letter certainly didn’t seem to work against me. Also doing it gave me some minor sense of actually being able to DO something, which was pleasant… Good luck.

I was in constant contact with my congressman, who was responsive, and my two senators, who were completely unresponsive, through the entire 17 month process. I don’t think that it made the tiniest bit of difference. But, I suspect that it makes a difference who your representative is and how important they consider this issue and how good their staff is.

If I were going through this again, I still wouldn’t hesitate to contact my reps.

You might also consider filing a privacy act request. Some folks call it Freedom of Information Act or FOIA, but I think if you are requesting info on yourself it is privacy act.

Now, I was in adjudication for an AWFULLY long time without a peep, so I filed a privacy act request. I can’t say that this request was what made things happen, but shortly thereafter I did receive an inquiry from an investigator who wanted some more info.

Within a few weeks I was finally adjudicated.

Coincidence? Maybe…

Interesting.I did file a FOIA in early october. I received some basic material i response by oct end. The dept that handles the FOIA asked the dept of state for a sanitised copy of my background investigation which they would then forward to me-have not received this yet. my adjudication is still pending…

our representatives might be able to expedite the background investigation portion of the application. apparently they cannot help with the adjudication process.

there is no harm done if you have been waiting for your clearance for a while