Issue Encyclopedia · Guideline B · Foreign Influence
Spouse (foreign citizen or dual citizen)
Does spouse (foreign citizen or dual citizen) affect a security clearance?
Basis: 799 decided hearing-level cases raising this issue. Descriptive history of decided cases, not a prediction.
Decided cases
799
hearing-level decisions raising this issue
Granted
43%
345 granted · 454 denied or revoked
Official mitigating conditions cited
| Condition | In granted cases | In denied cases |
|---|---|---|
| ¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely | 188 | 36 |
| ¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States | 113 | 11 |
| ¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk | 46 | 6 |
| ¶ 8(e) · Reporting requirements met promptly | 15 | 2 |
| ¶ 8(f) · Foreign interests too small to be used for influence | 11 | 0 |
| ¶ 8(d) · Contact on United States Government business, or approved by the agency | 4 | 1 |
¶ 8(a) · A conflict between foreign and United States interests is unlikely
- In granted cases
- 188
- In denied cases
- 36
¶ 8(b) · Deep and longstanding ties to the United States
- In granted cases
- 113
- In denied cases
- 11
¶ 8(c) · Contact so casual and infrequent that there is little risk
- In granted cases
- 46
- In denied cases
- 6
¶ 8(e) · Reporting requirements met promptly
- In granted cases
- 15
- In denied cases
- 2
¶ 8(f) · Foreign interests too small to be used for influence
- In granted cases
- 11
- In denied cases
- 0
¶ 8(d) · Contact on United States Government business, or approved by the agency
- In granted cases
- 4
- In denied cases
- 1
Circumstances credited in granted cases
- deep U.S. ties · credited in 89 granted cases
- severed foreign contact · credited in 4 granted cases
- voluntary disclosure before confrontation · credited in 2 granted cases
- foreign assets divested · credited in 1 granted case
- foreign passport surrendered · credited in 1 granted case
Recent decided examples
The case involves an applicant seeking security clearance who faced allegations under Guideline B for foreign influence and Guideline H for drug involvement. The applicant admitted to the allegations …
Applicant, an armed security supervisor for a U.S. installation in Kosovo, faced Guideline B allegations based on family ties, a home, and a bank account in Kosovo. He admitted all SOR allegations but…
The applicant's security clearance was denied due to unresolved security concerns under Guideline D (Sexual Behavior) and Guideline J (Criminal Conduct). The applicant admitted to paying for sex with …
The applicant's security clearance was denied due to unresolved financial issues and foreign influence concerns. He admitted to having approximately $23,037 in delinquent debt and acknowledged that hi…
Related issues under Guideline B
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.
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