The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has released a new guide (click here) to help applicants complete the newly formatted SF-86 in e-QIP that includes the recent changes in what and how information is asked. If you are a new applicant or undergoing a periodic reinvestigation, instead of just jumping into the e-QIP to start filling it out, I recommend you read this guide so that you know what information is needed. This enables you to go research or find the information before you log in and start the application. Pay particular attention to the sections for foreign contacts and activities. The questions apply not only to you, but also to your spouse, partner, cohabitant and dependent children.
Ensuring you provide accurate information, along with any details required to clarify or resolve issues, will help the investigation process flow more smoothly. Case reviewers and investigators won’t need to contact you for additional explanations and all the required checks will be scheduled by OPM right away.
My current company of 25 years wants to sponsor a DOD clearance for me and fill out SF86 (note: I had TS/SBI back before and up to 1992. I currently have a DOT SF85 Clearance in my current job). My spouse of 3 years has her green card (will qualify and apply for US Citizenship next year) but she does own property in Ukraine (small apartment worth less $10K USD ) that her daughter & granddaughter lives in.
This leads to several questions:
Does these fact prevent or severely lower my chances of me obtaining a confidential or secret clearance?
If I recommend she give the apartment to her daughter will this help?
Should I wait on getting my clearance if she says she does not want to turn it over to her daughter?
In 3-5 years in the future are higher level clearances still out of the question (more of a curiosity question)?
My Boss would allow me to postpone this until after my wife gets her Citizenship and possibly after transfering the property to her daughter
The fact that she is a foreign national and has close family living in the Ukraine is more concerning then the property, as they can be used to influence her by foreign entities. Not to say the concerns cannot be mitigated, but it will definitely be looked at closely with a possibility of a denial. When she does become a U.S. citizen the concern still exists. I would conduct some research into what the mitigating factors are for foreign influence and be prepared if you do go forward with applying for a clearance.
Understood, another person I know that dealt with teammates in the same situation said essentially the same thing,
Looking at some of the Mitigation factors spelled out in the Uniform Standards that were approved by the White House on March 24, 1997 (ref: 63 Fed. Reg. 4572, Jan. 30, 1998, 32 C.F.R. Part 147), The Security Guidelines latest version of Guidelines B and C state both the concern then these mitigation factors:
a. A determination that the immediate family member(s) (spouse, father, mother, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters), cohabitant, or associate(s) in question are not agents of a foreign power or in a position to be exploited by a foreign power in a way that could force the individual to choose between loyalty to the person(s) involved and the United States;
b. Contacts with foreign citizens are the result of official U.S. Government business;
c. Contact and correspondence with foreign citizens are casual and infrequent;
d. The individual has promptly complied with existing agency requirements regarding the reporting of contacts, requests, or threats from persons or organizations from a foreign country;
e. Foreign financial interests are minimal and not sufficient to affect the individual’s security responsibilities.
I will have to weigh these fact and do more research before discussing this with my manage… thanks for pointing me in the right direction