Dual Citizenship problem

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

Hello. I’m hoping this forum can help me out with what to do in order to obtain my clearance level. I’ve applied at a job that requires DoD clearance (not sure which one but the issue still remains the same)

I was born in Russia before the USSR fall and left in 1996 (after the collapse) to Israel. According to Israel I have a citizenship there due to my Jewish grandma. Now I am also a citizen of Russia due to being born there.

I left Israel and came to United States in 2001. I never possessed a Russian passport because I was underage and was listed under my mom. I do however have an Israelian passport. In 2008 I was naturalized as a U.S. citizen by going through the process and as far as I knew I renounced my other citizenship due to an oath. After further research it seems that it may not be the case and that I’d have to contact Russian consulate in U.S. to renounce a citizenship however for that I would have to apply for a passport in order to get rid of it.

Now I am about to get the offer for my job and I know the background check will start to go through (I’ll probably have to fill the SF86). So how do I tackle the issue of having previous citizenships and confirm that I renounced everything else as I don’t intend to visit either of the countries, never used the foreign passport besides getting into U.S. back in 2001 and don’t have my Russian passport due to being underage (to me it doesn’t make sense to request a passport to get rid of it as I’d have to go through a whole process with Russia and due to being underage I know I don’t owe them any taxes and never served in their military. From what I read the process takes about half a year and I believe it will affect my job offer and I’ll be automatically denied)

Now according to this: http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/doha/policyinterpmemo.pdf

as far as I understood I would have to surrender my Israel passport which is definitely not a problem plus it’s also expired at this point I believe. But my main concern is with Russian citizenship and how to get rid of something if I don’t have any documents showing I am a citizen besides filling out on the form my birth country which was Russia

2

The Adjudicative Desk Reference is the best source of information regarding how issues may impact an application for a security clearance. In your case, under Foreign Preference it states: If a person has taken any steps to obtain, maintain, or exercise any right, privilege, or obligation of a foreign citizenship after becoming an American citizen, this is a potentially disqualifying Foreign Preference issue.
If dual citizenship is involuntary, based solely on subject’s birth in a foreign country or parents’ citizenship in a foreign country, and the subject has not exercised or gained benefits from the foreign citizenship, the foreign citizenship is clearly not an issue.