Saudi starts removing illegal expats

The campaign contains fines, imprisonment, and deportation if illegal expats didn’t meet the documents in the given grace period. (Photo by wikimedia commons, CC0)

Saudi Arabia has started pulling out illegal expatriates after the government granted them a 90-day amnesty period to voluntarily leave the kingdom before the 24th of July.

It has been estimated that around 600,000 people responded to the given pardon of correcting their status and leave the country without penalties.

The campaign contains fines, imprisonment, and deportation if illegal expats didn’t meet the documents in the given grace period.

“Violators who don’t initiate correcting their status and get detained will be subject to enforcing the rules and regulations of the labor law and residency system,” Lt. Col. Talal Al-Shalhoub, spokesman of the General Directorate of Passports (GDP), told Arab News last march of 2017.

Workers can reenter the country if they fall in with the legal methods.

Saudi Arabia is currently the largest country that has significant number of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), and has huge Filipino population in the Middle East.

The Saudi Arabia Authorities haven’t released estimated number of “violators”.

In 2013, a campaign reciprocally took place to legalize the status of undocumented workers.