Saudi Arabia cracks down on illegal immigrants

There is nothing more satisfying to a disgruntled population struggling with high unemployment than raiding and rounding up illegal immigrants. Governments are compelled to appear in charge at difficult times, and a struggling society happily watches hundreds of illegal immigrants being deported. Out of the crisis, there emerges a sense of momentary quasi-nationalism that may soon evaporate amid news of clashes and death. Illegal immigrants are the "stranger" par excellence, and are always good scapegoats, an enemy within who can be blamed for all sorts of ills, from petty crime to taking jobs from locals.

The Saudi government has decided to act and round up thousands of illegal immigrants of various nationalities in Riyadh and Jeddah after giving them notice to either leave the country or sort out their visa situations. So far, the raids resulted in several deaths among both the security forces and the immigrants. Images of battles in the most deprived areas of Riyadh, where such immigrants find refuge, circulated with Saudis either participating in vigilantism and lending support to their police force or simply cheering and watching the drama unfold from a distance. One Saudi civilian went as far as boasting about his participation in "liberating" a shabby building from illegal Ethiopian immigrants. Immediately after the raids, a consensus emerged with regard to the operation to cleanse the country from the menace of those strangers who are often accused of forming gangs and engaging in petty crime, brewing alcohol for local consumption and running prostitution rings.

Of course, nobody is willing to recognize that many clandestine immigrants are employed by both Saudis and expatriates, who benefit from their unregulated and precarious status and low wage demands. Those who employ illegal immigrants are often denied the right to import labor themselves or cannot afford the cumbersome and expensive process, which remains the prerogative of the wealthy and well connected. This situation has created a local market where cheap labor can be recruited from among those who have fallen on the wrong side of immigration rules and regulations, thus finding themselves in an underground world.

The story is familiar and has been symptomatic of a combination of economic, political and social factors. The Saudi economy and prosperity remain dependent on foreign labor, both the regulated and the unregulated. One third of the Saudi population, around eight million, are expatriates who work in both skilled and unskilled professions. Before the discovery of oil, Saudi Arabia was a country of emigration. Many Saudis sought their fortunes abroad as laborers or traders. They established trade networks across the region from Egypt to India. Some of them even worked on digging up the Suez Canal in the 19th century, while traders from central Arabia established merchant houses and sought profit in Bombay.