Are You Experiencing Security Clearance Processing Delays?

I’m nearly at day 500 of my T5/SSBI investigation. I do not know if it has gone on to adjudication with DHS yet. I submitted SF-86 July 27 2016. I’ve had either a secret or top secret clearance ever since a cadet at USCGA in 1996. Desperate to know what’s holding my clearance up or even get a sense of when I can start working. I want to join DHS OIG but i’m not sure how much longer my savings can last waiting this process out. There should be a Veterans ombudsman at NBIB who can expedite cases and respond to vet inquires. Fed the bear…don’t leave us wondering who what when why how.

I contacted my Senator and a rep called me back within a few weeks. The way a political leader can help you is they force x agency to have accountability to them.

Contact your senator or your house rep.

I completely agree! I am in contract with one of my senators. Although I have only been waiting for 272 days. I just hope an investigator will contact me soon.

After talking to a rep from x senator I was told how the senator can help me. X agency (OPM, DSS, DOD…) has to give them a timeline on where the investigation is. I believe the constant pressure from x office forces them to not let your file go on the back burner. I was told that x agency will respond to my senator between 30-45 days. I was thinking what is another 45 days? Its been 272 now!

You are lucky! My investigation opened officially on 05/06/2016. I have not heard a word since. I know my credit was pulled three days later but I am left in the dark. Are you going for your TS or your secret?

Already did and was assigned a case manager from constituent services. Why is there not more transparency. Why are there not ombudsmen to contact at NBIB? Why is there not step increases to offset the burden placed upon the individuals to help make them whole? There is a standard it is not being met and there are no reprocussions for failing to meet the standard. So they are like the pirate rules…more like guidelines than rules I suppose.

Secret, I got cleared 11/28

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I contacted my senator after about a year without hearing anything about my investigation. The OPM expedited my investigation after that, and my clearance was granted about a month later.

The senator I contacted is on the committees for intelligence, defense, and energy. I also live in a state where the economy depends a great deal on defense/national security industry, so I think my senator is used to it.

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Forcing quick decisions would work against most folks. Think about it, if an agency or adjudicator had to give a yes or no in a very short time period - with the knowledge if they make a mistake that hits national news later on that they are held partially responsible - you will find more folks in the no column.

The amount of time your background investigation takes has a lot of moving parts. Here are the three big elephants.

  • who is doing your investigation? NBIB gets blamed for old cases that we are not doing. There are nine investigation service providers (that I last knew) and while NBIB does the lion share of cases, we don’t do certain law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, or DHS agencies.

  • Where are you? NVA, DC, MD, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Denver, are some of the high impact areas for BIs. If you are in these areas, worked in these areas, or list references in these areas… your investigation will be delayed. Very rural areas are also impacted. My area covers parts of four states and two time zones.

-How diligent were you filling out your questionnaire. 14 years and I still spend too much time looking for Subjects who either don’t live in my area - but list they are working here or live in my area but list their employer’s address as their job location. Also - list valid contact information for you and your employer - the generic number without an extension, only listing your cell phone (which has since changed) or leaving your email off the questionnaire entirely are speed bumps you can control.

-These are just a few of the things that impact your timeline.

From what I have seen, it’s not the BI that takes too long. From the time I was contacted by my investigator until she filed her report was about 45 days. My clearance took 17 months.

It sat, somewhere, for seven months before getting to my investigator’s desk. It sat, somewhere, for nearly six months after she was done. Once I received my SOR, everything went pretty quickly.

The problem lies, in my view, in that “somewhere” that the files sit in between the actions that we actually see.

That has long been my belief. My last periodic update, I think I submitted the forms in October-ish, spoke to the investigator a few weeks later, and JPAS showed the investigation complete the following January. Not bad… but it was a long, long time before it was finally adjudicated.

Hello All,

Hope you guys are having a good holiday season.

Some Updates: TS/SCI
Submitted: 10/16/16
Opened:11/11/216
Clearance Investigation CLOSED as of 12/6/17
Clearance GRANTED 12/19/17
429 Days since Submission to Granted.

Thank you all for support, Knowledge, advice to go through this process. I felt like it would never come but it did. For those still waiting: Hold tight and trust the broken system. It WILL come.

Best wishes to all,

Good lord. Congrats man. Sail on into the good night. Seen you stressing on here for a couple months lol.

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Lol yeah I have been. Things have changed since its been done. Life happens obviously but my original sponsor just never let me know about anything. I haven’t heard from the Army for months and I just found another job. The new job asked for my info to transfer me into their cage code and I was ilke sure why not. Turns out my case was closed and pending adjudication the whole time I was working here. Army never told me. I think the original job is gone so maybe thats why there is no communication. I am not offended as the job I just started is a way better gig for the long term and as a recent ish grad, this excited me. Hopefully you found my information useful over the year. Hope you get yours soon! @Smityj15

That’s awesome man! So you only waited 13 days until clearance was granted after investigation closed? How did you know when your investigation closed?

I guess so! I decided to ask my company FSO what my status was for kicks and giggles thinking it would be the same old same old. She gets back to me and causally says yeah your investigation is still closed you should hear something soon. Me: WHAT? IT CLOSED? WHEN? So she was obviously not as excited as I was. She has access to JPAS so she just punched in my info and told me in a few minutes. This would have been a 9 month process to have the army do the same mundane task.

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That is awesome, happy for you. What a long wait, and what a relief hey?

Thanks man! Yeah it is. I mean I am treating today like I did yesterday. Thats what this process has done to me lol. But its a great feeling.