MANILA: Overstaying Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia will be arrested and deported for violating the Kingdom’s immigration laws even during the three-month grace period given by the Saudi government for undocumented foreign workers to rectify their status.
Saudi Ambassador to the Philippines Abdullah Al Hassan said that the Kingdom will have to implement its immigration laws regarding overstaying foreigners in the same manner that the Philippines have deported overstaying Saudi nationals.
“It is not our main focus to penalise people who are supposed to be penalised. What concern we have is to implement our own laws. And those who are not staying illegally, of course, they will enjoy the protection given to expatriates,” Al Hassan said through an interpreter.
“I would say in a very crystal statement after this 90-day grace period, of course. Within this period, we expect that the concerned authorities for those legal residents should have to do what they can do in order to deport these illegal workers,” he added.
The 90-day grace period started last April 6.
“After this period has lapsed, we will have to implement the full measure of the law to strengthen and to apply the law as we have done here in the Philippines. There are Saudi nationals who are coming here in the Philippines and with your immigration law. It is the royal embassy of Saudi Arabia who will take care of their deportation,” Al Hassan said.
Al Hassan said the 90-day grace period is applied to all foreign workers who are residing illegally in Saudi Arabia. Al Hassan said that if the said illegal workers fail to rectify and regularise their status within the given grace period, they should leave the Kingdom.
“This new policy measures are implemented not only for overseas Filipino workers but for all overseas workers residing in the kingdom illegally. Within the grace period, they should leave,” he said through an interpreter.
Meanwhile, Al Hassan said the government of Saudi Arabia would not be extending any assistance to the undocumented Filipino workers who are now camped outside the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah.
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs, the number of those camped outside the Philippine Consulate in Jeddah has swelled to at least 700 as of last Tuesday.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR
