The game has continued for years now. The authorities deport foreign workers who overstay their Haj visas in order to stay behind and look for jobs. The deportees always manage to return to the Kingdom at the earliest possible opportunity, some within just a few days of their leaving. One African man once boasted to me that if he were deported in the morning, he would be back to pray Zuhr in Jeddah!
For a person to be able to return to the Kingdom on the same plane that took him there from the Kingdom, they must be in touch with some organization or group that specializes in making such arrangement. Before being taken from the detention center to the airport to be returned to his home country, the deportee contacts an intermediary who gets in touch at once with his contacts in the man’s home country. Those contacts — gang members perhaps? — arrange for a new passport in a different name, complete with entry visa and other requirements. The moment the deportee arrives in his country, he finds someone waiting for him with the new documents. What could be easier?
If things continue along these lines, no campaign launched which aims at arresting and deporting overstayers and others illegally in the Kingdom can possibly be successful. The idea of deporting overstayers by giving them a free ride home is both expensive and counterproductive. It is a burden on the state treasury and even worse, has not produced the desired results. The cost is huge; media campaigns featuring advertisements and thousands of pamphlets and booklets in addition to ongoing campaigns involving thousands of policemen in order to find, arrest and detain illegal immigrants. And then to pay for their tickets home! How incredible!
If we think this is the best or only way to address the problem, the opposite should now be clear. The time is long past for us to look for other solutions — something more innovative, less expensive and more efficient at performing the desired function.
One African country is reported to have refused landing rights to the Kingdom’s planes which have deportees from that country on board. In one well-known case, a Saudi plane with a large number of deportees was forced to circle the airport for hours and was denied landing rights. Faced with such a situation, the pilot had no choice but to return to the Kingdom with his passengers.
