Many intelligent hardworking foreigners who love this country and would like to live here cannot do so because they are only allowed to be here on a temporary basis — even though sometimes that temporary basis stretches to decades! The Kingdom is losing a great deal by not granting these people citizenship and benefiting from their talents and abilities. We need individuals such as those. They would be an asset to the Kingdom and would be citizens we could all be proud of. To illustrate what I mean, I will talk about two gifted and dedicated expatriates who are personally known to me. I know that they love our country and its people but they have been denied the privilege of Saudi citizenship.
The first is an Arab physician who has been working here for years and whose two sons know no other homeland. Yes the physician is not eligible for Saudi citizenship as he is three points short of what is required under the latest regulations. He continues to work under the sponsorship of a Saudi who has the power to decide whether he stays in the country or leaves.
The other case — which is even more unfortunate — involves a young Syrian who was born in the Kingdom but who is now a naturalized American. His father, an engineer, lived in the Kingdom for more than 20 years. The son studied in Saudi schools and graduated with honors from the King Fahd University for Petroleum and Minerals. Because getting Saudi nationality was not easy, the son migrated to the United States where he became a citizen and got a scholarship which enabled him to study for his MA. Once that was done, he got a job with a company affiliated with the Department of Defense where he now works. In addition, he is now studying for a PhD. This young man who grew up and spent his childhood and youth in the Kingdom which he looked upon as his home now dreams of coming back here to teach at one of our universities. Were he to come, however, he would still need an exit/reentry visa whenever he wished to go to the US to visit his parents who now also live there.
I have met great many Muslims of a variety of educational and professional backgrounds who are ready to make sacrifices — including giving up the high salaries they earn abroad — just to be able to live close to the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah. This is a blessing that we should employ in order to attract highly qualified foreigners from all over the world.
Because granting citizenship is a sovereign matter that entails political, social and cultural considerations and may prove a complicated process, I suggest we benefit from the American Green Card experience. A similar system could be introduced in the Kingdom whereby foreigners are granted permanent residence and allowed to enjoy certain privileges and rights without the need for them to have a sponsor. After a certain period of time, they could be granted full citizenship. Some will inevitably argue that granting green cards means more foreigners competing with Saudis for jobs. Had we granted a Saudi green card to someone like Bill Gates 20 years ago, we would by now have $250 billion worth of software business.
