Issue Encyclopedia · Guideline B · Foreign Influence

Direct Contact with Foreign Government

What the decided record shows for this issue, computed from public DOHA hearing-level decisions. Descriptive history, not a prediction.

Does direct contact with foreign government affect a security clearance?

Direct Contact with Foreign Government is an issue decided under Guideline B, Foreign Influence. In the decided DOHA record it appears in 64 hearing-level cases, and 41% of the 64 decided ended with access granted (26 granted, 38 denied). The mitigating conditions judges credited most often, and example decisions either way, are below.

Basis: 64 decided hearing-level cases raising this issue. Descriptive history of decided cases, not a prediction.

Official mitigating conditions cited

The formal mitigating conditions the case profiles identified on this issue, in cases that were granted and in cases that were denied. Each is shown with its paragraph number and a plain name. Read what each condition says.

Official mitigating conditions cited
Condition	In granted cases	In denied cases
¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States	9	0
¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely	7	1
¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk	2	3

¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States
In granted cases
9
In denied cases
0
¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely
In granted cases
7
In denied cases
1
¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk
In granted cases
2
In denied cases
3

Circumstances credited in granted cases

The specific circumstances the judge expressly credited among the granted cases on this issue where that detail was extracted.

deep U.S. ties · credited in 4 granted cases

Recent decided examples

ISCR Case No. 23-02263Granted2025
The applicant in this case was a 37-year-old native of Afghanistan who sought a security clearance after being employed as a linguist for U.S. military forces. The Defense Counterintelligence and Secu…
ISCR Case No. 22-01017Granted2023
The applicant in this case was a 50-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Pakistan, who sought a security clearance after being issued a Statement of Reasons (SOR) citing concerns under Gu…
ISCR Case No. 21-02181Denied2023
Applicant, a 32-year-old U.S. citizen, sought a security clearance after working for a government contractor since 2016. The Department of Defense issued a Statement of Reasons (SOR) citing concerns u…
ISCR Case No. 19-01170Denied2022
The applicant in this case was a 64-year-old prospective employee of a defense contractor seeking a security clearance for a position as a linguist interpreter/translator. The Defense Counterintellige…

See all 64 decisions on this issue

Related issues under Guideline B

Parent (citizen/resident of foreign country) (2,286)
Sibling (citizen/resident of foreign country) (1,752)
In-law (citizen/resident of foreign country) (1,024)
Spouse (foreign citizen or dual citizen) (799)
Extended Family (uncle/aunt/cousin) in foreign country (684)
Foreign Real Estate Holding (501)

How these numbers are measured

Scope: decided hearing-level cases whose per-allegation profile records this issue, matched to the same issue value the search filters use, so a count here and a filtered search always agree. A case raising several issues counts under each one. The mitigating conditions and the credited circumstances below were extracted for a subset of the record, so both are counts of cases rather than rates. Pages exist only for issues with at least 25 decided cases, and † marks any split built on fewer than 20.

Reading the statistics

Granted = access granted or continued; Denied = denied or revoked.
Grant rate = granted ÷ (granted + denied).
† marks figures based on fewer than 20 cases, too few to be reliable.
Hovering any rate shows its statistical range (a 95% confidence interval).
Figures are descriptive counts over decided, public DOHA ISCR decisions, never predictions or assessments of any pending case.

Where to go from here

Get help with my case

Send us your question, or the Statement of Reasons you received. No charge, and a CASE analyst reads it. Usually five to ten business days.

Ask a question →

I do this for clients

Rank every decision by how closely it matches a matter, see how the assigned judge has ruled, and keep it together with cited exports.

For attorneys and firms →

Decided public cases: descriptive, never a prediction.