Within the last year, I traveled to Cuba for a family vacation, in violation of U.S. sanctions. I am now considering applying for a job in intelligence. (I did not think my career would go this route when I booked my trip to Cuba, obviously.) Would this be a dealbreaker for being granted clearance? I am squeaky clean otherwise.
Nothing is a deal breaker but you likely made your efforts to get cleared much more difficult. It may help that travel restrictions have been greatly eased since you went. But, you still traveled to a hostile nation in violation of U.S. policy.
That isn’t going to help you.
I’m sure it will slow things down even more than the slow snail’s pace we have come to know. There will be a lot of questions and you will need to provide a lot of details about your trip (dates, places, contacts, names, etc etc etc). But would it be a dealbreaker? Hard to say for sure.
My father has a top secret clearance and is a professor at a large university. His PHD is in social economics.
He travels to Cuba every year for the past thirty years. He provides all necessary information to his FSO and has never had a issue.
Were not in the cold war times. You won’t have any issues according to him. My mother also has a clearance and has traveled with him for leisure, again no issues. I am starting my clearance for my university research, I attend the same university that my father is a professor at, and the FSO says It should be smooth sailing. Yes I have been to Cuba as well as China, Turkey.
The problem is that you went knowing it was sanctioned at the time and does not fall under one of the permitted categories now; Leisure is not one of them.
It may still work, but i would not count on it due to there being so many more applicants that have not.