Stranded illegals fear eviction from homes

Thousands of expatriates stranded without proper documentation are fighting against time to regularize their status ahead of the July 3 deadline.
Illegals fear they may be evicted them from their apartments and houses if they fail to rectify their status.
Arab News has received a number of calls from desperate workers seeking help to sort their paperwork to prevent this from happening.
Pacita Cabrera, a Filipino national, said she had recorded her biometric details, but had not received an exit visa.
“My problem is that after July 3 my landlord will not allow me to stay at my rented house.”
She hopes there will be an extension of the deadline.
Other Filipinos are also desperately trying to get their documentation sorted out.
Neil Grajo told Arab News that he has recorded his biometric details, but could not secure a final exit visa. He went to the airport several times but they asked him to go to back to the passport department. Officials at the passport department then told him to go back to the airport.
“Our embassy does not want to give me a ticket because I don’t have an exit visa,” said Grajo. "I am now completely confused about what to do with only a few days left to the deadline."
According to Migrante, the group representing Filipino migrant workers, between 22,000 to 28,000 workers have applied to either stay in the Kingdom or go home. Of the 10,000 workers who want to go home, 600 have completed their biometric procedures.
Migrante vice chairperson John Leonard Monterona said only 300 stranded Filipinos have been repatriated from Saudi Arabia since May 2013 when the Philippines government started the process at the "Tent City" in Jeddah.
According to Monterona, there are 350 women Filipinos with children waiting for fingerprinting in Jeddah.
“The bottom line is that thousands of stranded Filipino workers are still waiting in vain to complete their repatriation formalities. We fear that the estimated 10,000 to 12,000 stranded workers who applied for repatriation won’t all be repatriated on or before the July 3 deadline of the 90-day grace period,” Monterona said.
Monterona proposed the creation of a high-level delegation to be sent immediately to Saudi Arabia to explore the fast tracking of the repatriation process and to seek an extension to the grace period.
In another development, the Southern Philippines Muslim & Non-Muslim Unity and Development Association (SPMUDA), a non-government organization recognized by the United Nations, has written a letter to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah seeking an extension of the grace period for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW).
“In the spirit of the holy month of Ramadan, we wish to join with different nations to ask your government to extend the grace period for illegal OFWs ...” stated Dr. Camad M. Ali, world founding chairman and CEO of the organization, in the letter sent through the Saudi Embassy in the Philippines.