RAID ON ILLEGALS INTENSIFIES

Tens of thousands of illegal expats have been arrested in the ongoing crackdown on violators of residency and labor rules in the Kingdom.

The raids covered all the cities in the kingdom with Riyadh, Jeddah and Eastern regions cities of Dammam and Khobar being then major cities targeted in this joint campaign against illegal. According to statements released by authorities, over 50,000 have been arrested since the raid begun on Sunday.

In Riyadh, the raids covered Manfouha, Yamama,Qubeira, Bat’ha,Naseem and other districts as officials with the help of security forces cordoned off roads in these districts before the raids.

This joint campaign by the ministry of labor and interior as well as passport department is targeting expats who have violators of iqama and labor regulations such as working for illegal sponsors, over-stayers of Hajj/Umrah visas as well as run-away employees. Employers of illegal workers will also be targeted and will face upto 1 year imprisonment and a fine of upto 50,000 S.R if found guilty.

According to the statement, the crackdown also targets hideouts of run-away maids, with authorities having identified and marked several areas and arrested several run-away employees and those who were found sheltering them. In Addition, residents as well as expats have been tipping off the authorities about such dens through hotline number(989) provided by the authorities.

This is the first phase of the campaign against illegal and undocumented expats with the second phase said to be on employees in the private sectors as well as private business of expats.