<p>Top secret security clearance will require that you destroy any passports you have issued by a foreign country.</p>
<p>Bioblade…</p>
<p>Bigtrees is right. Once you are cleared…that EU passport is gone.</p>
<p>bioblade: It depends. Dual Citizenship will be looked upon as a problem but it depends on </p>
<p>a) What country it is from? England (okay) vs. China (huge red flag)</p>
<p>b) Type of clearance. I have nothing to back this up with but from my experience, dual citizenship will be somewhat tolerated for Secret, depending on which country issued the citizenship. Top Secret dual citizenship might also be tolerated but again dependent on the country (e.g. dual citizenship from UK-USA countries). </p>
<p>c) On the agency. Each agency might have its own guidelines regarding dual citizenship. For example, an organization like the CIA will look at any dual citizenship as a huge red flag.</p>
<p>It is always best to renounce dual citizenship and destroy your other passport as not to create any future problems.</p>
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<p>That would be a very myopic approach. Just like clearance results in a raise for some jobs, dual citizenship does the same for others. Not to mention the flexibility you’d have to move to the EU for employment if the job market in the US becomes very tight for your field (the EU has many labor-protection laws that, while they depress salaries, maintains many jobs in the EU that would otherwise have been outsourced to Asia.</p>
<p>You might as well wait until they tell you to renounce citizenship before you actually do.</p>
<p>What if you are from a red flag country (let’s say Afghanistan), but you’ve lived in America since before you could crawl, and you have your citizenship with the US. Is this an automatic reject, especially if relatives live in the country still?</p>
<p>Just a hypothetical situation…</p>
<p>They require you to destroy your passport but not renouce your dual citizenship. Those are two different things.</p>
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<p>I agree. Please disclose the fact that you have dual citizenship/passport and wait till they tell you to destroy it. Security clearances are required for jobs which affect our national security. So it’s a question of loyalty. If you are working in the Defense/Intel sector it is imperative that your loyalty is to the United States, and this requirement is reflected by the vetting done by the hiring agency which rightly sees the dual citizenship aspect of the applicant as problematic. However, as I said dual citizenship might not be a problem depending on a couple of situations (Secret clearance, citizenship from UKUSA countries etc.) Also, these things depend on a case by case basis. Obviously it’s an applicant’s choice to keep his/her dual citizenship. My contention was merely that, unless for some reason you have to keep dual citizenship/passport, it’s just better to get rid of it if you are going into these fields. It just removes a lot of hurdles during the security process, that’s all.</p>
<p>hadsed: Depends. For Secret clearance it might not be a problem. For Top Secret, it might. Usually for Top Secret clearance they require the applicant and his/her immediate family (parents, siblings) to be US citizens, but it will depend on what the country is, the frequency of correspondence with the relatives, frequency of travel to that country, financial ties to the country etc. etc. As I said, these situations are looked at in a case by case basis. My advice: disclose everything, be truthful and it should be fine.</p>
<p>Citan, do you know how a spouse’s family could affect security clearances? My pretty long time girlfriend was turned down for a clearance due to one of her parents not being a citizen; could that be a problem at some point down the road for me?</p>
<p>(If so, I’m going to be dogging her more often about getting that parent to finally apply for citizenship.)</p>
<p>Piggybacking on what Citran posted.</p>
<p>Secret clearances?..those are not much more than a credit and criminal checks.</p>
<p>Top Secret?..yes, pretty much immediate family must be USA citizens</p>
<p>Top Secret/SCI…more strict than Top Secret</p>
<p>Top Secret/SCI + Polygraph: reserved for the FBI, CIA and the No Such Agencies. The polygraph is used just to find out anything that was not discovered through all the other background checks. You pretty much cannot even be remotely romantic with anyone not from the USA. That WILL be asked at your polygraph if you have done ANY international travel. Trust me.</p>
<p>RacinReaver: Yes, your spouse’s family could affect security clearances. Depends though on what the country is as well. I am guessing she was going for TS or TS/SCI. Basically they look for sources of blackmail. So when you get to the TS level it is usually required that you and your spouse’s immediate family be US citizens. </p>
<p>Strict requirements, I know. Although, these days since many people have some international travel/connection, I have heard that even the hardcore Intel agencies such as CIA/NSA etc. are becoming more tolerant of this fact. I remember reading CIA specifically targeting Arabic/Middle Eastern youngsters to join. Makes sense right? I hope this is the future because the threats are global and we cannot just rely on recruits who never had any international exposure. International exposure/connection, foreign languages are an asset. Of course, the vetting has to be vigorous but that is what the arduous security process is for ;)</p>
<p>GLOBALTRAVELER: Your last paragraph is not true. There have been many people with international backgrounds who have been part of Intel agencies. Case in point, look at James Jesus Angleton, the CIAs counter-intelligence chief during the Cold War, his mother was Mexican citizen. You will find other examples. The vetting process is on a case-by-case basis so having international travel/connection is not an automatic rejection.</p>
<p>One thing I know which is true though, you can’t join CIA if you were in the Peace Corps (or was it the other way around?), until after a certain period has passed :D</p>
<p>Citran - Re-read my last paragraph…</p>
<p>“You pretty much cannot even be remotely romantic with anyone not from the USA. That WILL be asked at your polygraph if you have done ANY international travel.”</p>
<p>You mentioned someone’s mother.</p>
<p>I am there at Fort Meade everyday. There are stories about clearances being snatched for romantic connections with foreign nationals. Now the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ will be at a case-by-case basis but anywhere else better be told and allowed to be researched or you will be rejected. That is a question asked at the polys.</p>
<p>One more thing, you mentioned the CIA. It is known fact that even the transition from FBI to CIA to NSA does not always go smoothly because those 3 cannot agree on their polygraph criteria.</p>
<p>I was talking in a more general fashion, about having international connections, not necessarily romantic ones. Well, international relations are disclosed first in the forms and not necessarily for the first time during polygraph. The polygraph is basically a way to corroborate information you put down on the forms.</p>
<p>I heard of a case where a NSA employee’s clearance was snatched because he went to a massage parlor and opted for a “happy ending”. The clearance process is tricky. It’s all about mitigation. The DoD has directives on this. Google them. For example, a clearance decision:</p>
<p>“Applicant is 29 years old and employed as an Engineer by a defense contractor. Her foreign contacts in South Korea that include her mother, father, grandmother and other extended relatives, do not pose a security risk. Sufficient mitigation has been shown. Clearance is granted.”</p>
<p>vs</p>
<p>"Applicant is 37 years old. He was born in Jordan and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2008. His wife is a citizen and resident of Jordan and holds permanent residency status in the U.S. The children are dual citizens of the U.S. and Jordan. She and their children live in an apartment in Jordan owned by Applicant. He recently destroyed his Jordanian passport. Applicant mitigated the security concerns under Guideline C, Foreign Preference, but failed to mitigate the security concerns under Guideline B, for Foreign Influence. Clearance is denied. "</p>
<p>Obviously, the country played a big factor in the above.</p>
<p>Read the full reports and many others at [Industrial</a> Security Clearance Decisions](<a href=“http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/doha/industrial/]Industrial”>http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/doha/industrial/). It is interesting that most denials are due to financial case. </p>
<p>The ones posted there are outcome of the appeal process, I believe.</p>
<p>Her family’s from a non-antagonistic (as far as I know) South American country, but I think I might still get on her to have her mom try to get citizenship. Thanks!</p>
<p>I was born in Poland, as were my parents. They’re both US citizens. My brother is a US citizen as well, but he was born here. I do have extended family in Poland, but I’m only in contact with my grandparents and I don’t think they would raise any red flags (not one of my four grandparents ever joined the communist party, of which 90%+ of Poland was at the time, even though it cost them any chance of job advancement, etc. - they consider it a point of pride).
I actually just had to look up Poland-US relations on Wikipedia (I never really thought it would be important before) and it seems ok to me. "The United States and Poland have enjoyed warm bilateral relations since 1989. Every post-1989 Polish government has been a strong supporter of continued American military and economic presence in Europe, and Poland is one of the most staunch allies of the United States.</p>
<p>When Poland joined NATO on March 12, 1999 the two countries became part of the same military alliance. As well as supporting the Global War on Terror, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and coalition efforts in Iraq (where Polish contingent was one of the largest), Poland cooperates closely with the United States on such issues as democratization, nuclear proliferation, human rights, regional cooperation in central and eastern Europe, and reform of the United Nations." Not to mention the missile defense shield agreement between the US and Poland. </p>
<p>Then again, I’m not going to pretend to be the expert here (far from it) and I have to turn to you guys for advice again. Do you think there would be any problems coming from an ex-communist country? Which types of clearance would it be hard to get, etc? </p>
<p>The polygraph test and personal loyalty thing I’m least concerned about - I’ve heard enough stories about how terrible communism was from my parents to appreciate what I have here. </p>
<p>I only use my American passport, so I wouldn’t really care about losing my Polish one. Dual citizenship is ehh. It hasn’t really benefited me thus far, but as stated before, it does open up another door.</p>
<p>Poland is pretty friendly IMO. I think rather than considering Poland as being an ex-communist country we think of it more as a country which suffered under Communist oppression. Anyway, we were also going to field missiles in Poland before pulling out last year, we wouldn’t do that in countries not friendly to us :D</p>
<p>You and your immediate family seem to be US citizens, so I don’t think that should pose any problems either.</p>
<p>I just wanted to weigh in to the conversation about pay. My husband has been an engineer for a looonnnnnnnnng time (- we both have engineering degrees, see previous post for more of my story). I have seen his pay go up at great speeds and other times take a 10% pay cut. This field, like so many others, will go up and down with the economy. It would be a mistake to look at this field and make sweeping generalizations based on the last 2 -3 years. But it would be a mistake to look at any job/career/field and base the entire job/salary history on the last few years. Our entire economy is hurting, that means that fewer people are upgrading their electronics at breakneck speed. But that will change when the economy picks up, and then we won’t have enough engineers to make the products the world craves.</p>
<p>Terencec, hang in there, you’ve got a lot of productive and lucrative years ahead of you. This downturn is temporary. Outsourcing has been happening for years, but the top jobs will probably never be outsourced. The skills of the American engineer are amazing. Put engineers trained in our schools, in the environment where we can reap what we sow and you get an unbeatable combination. The free enterprise system works well for us. Will we be rich? probably not, but Bill Gates didn’t start as a business man he was a software type.</p>