STATE VP VOICE | BY HUI JUN TINA WONG Contact: wong@afsa.org | (202)-647-8160 Understanding Assignment Restrictions and Denials September marks the Summer 2025 bidding season, when about onethird of the Foreign Service workforce applies for onward assignments. Notable in this year’s bidding instructions is the State Department’s prioritized staffing of hardship and high differential posts, posts with small sections, and other mission-critical areas. To further address the problem of having 400-plus more jobs than bidders, a predetermined number of jobs across FS-3, -2, and -1 generalists, and some specialist categories, are again frozen at the bureau level. Mandarin, Arabic, and other “super-hard” languages remain high staffing priorities. Did you know, however, that a segment of our Foreign Service workforce is barred from bidding on certain posting(s) or may not get paneled to that assignment? These are known as assignment restrictions and assignment review (or pass-through) denials (learn more in Matthew Asada’s article on page 48). AFSA recently negotiated with the department to implement reforms, including a congressionally mandated independent appeals mechanism and the accompanying procedural steps for those employees facing Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) assignment restrictions or assignment reviews. Why This Matters Members across the Foreign Service agencies should know that those in any employment category (Foreign Service, Civil Service, contractors, eligible family members, or interns) can face delays in DS clearance adjudications or notification of restrictions on a specific country of assignment. For more than a decade, AFSA has been at the forefront of helping affected members—many with deep cultural knowledge and linguistic talents—navigate these processes. As former president of the Asian American Foreign Affairs Association (AAFAA) and now AFSA State vice president, I have been on an advocacy journey that has not only focused on achieving independent appeals but also on continuously calling on the department to reduce adjudicative errors, increase case review timeliness, and improve predictability of these processes. What Did We Win? One of the most tangible outcomes of AFSA and AAFAA advocacy was establishment of the 2020-2021 Assignment Restrictions Task Force (ARTF), whose work included an audit that resulted in a two-thirds reduction of assignment restriction cases from more than 1,200 to fewer than 600 today. We are grateful for the efforts of former DS Office Director for Personnel Security and Suitability Erin Smart, whose team worked hard over several years to resolve and reduce those cases. AFSA and AAFAA successfully encouraged the department and found allies on the Hill to advocate for improved outcomes. The department’s decision to end issuance of new assignment restrictions in March 2023 marked another success for AFSA members. The department anticipates that the rest of the grandfathered assignment restriction cases will gradually be lifted over time. Some employees who do not have restrictions or whose restrictions were newly lifted may encounter assignment review denials. (See the newly negotiated 12 FAM 230 for Assignment Restrictions and 12 FAM 260 for Assignment Reviews appeals procedures.) A Glass Half Empty or Full? I’d be the first to admit that I worried about the department’s decision to continue the assignment review program and its potential chilling effect on many of our bidders who want to serve in certain critical high-threat countries. But I found a glimmer of hope when connecting with an entry-level officer who has been approved to serve in a region where he has living foreign relatives. We traded stories about our family histories and learned a lot about what we had in common, particularly in going through the assignment review process. We went through the assignment review process exactly 10 years apart, and it seems to me that the regulations were applied consistently in our cases. Thus, I am calling for those critical missions looking to attract more bidders to showcase the diversity in their current workforce. The bottom line for bidders: Don’t count yourself out solely because you happen to check the familyties criteria listed in 12 FAM 263.2(b)(1-2). For more questions about bidding, contact the specific regional bureau or your career development officer. The Appeals Recourse For those who have been waiting for resolution of their cases, there is finally an independent appeals mechanism, the Assignments Security Appeals Panel (A-SAP). We sent out a detailed AFSAnet in June about AFSA’s negotiated wins on the A-SAP procedures, 60 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS Continued on page 75
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