These vendors spread out on streets of other areas as Al-Murqib and Al-Ghurabi as well. Besides occupying these streets, one can only imagine the scope of illegal activities these illegal expatriates are engaged in. Almost daily, local newspapers carry reports on the arrests of violators in restaurants due to a lack of cleanliness, forging of documents, staying without legal residence permits (iqamas) and for tasattur (running a business in the name of a Saudi in return for a fixed payment). There are tens of other violations for which expatriates are apprehended every single day. As crackdown campaigns by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development and the Passport Department increase, different violations by illegal expatriates also grow. These violations are not only limited to Riyadh but they are detected om all other towns and cities, including Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and Dammam. No town or city in the Kingdom is exempt from violations by the expatriates. These expatriates are actually dissipating our economy. They should be considered illegal residents even if they are holding regular residency permits. They have not come to our country to open shops or to do some business but to do certain jobs needed by the labor market. What are the solutions then? In my opinion, the solutions are simple but they need strict application of the law and the provision of enough law-enforcement elements. The Saudi who brought the expatriate and let him loose on the streets to commit violations and the foreign worker are both endangering our country. After fingerprinting them both, the violating expatriate should be given a final exit visa to leave the country immediately. The sponsors who let their workers loose on the streets should be named and shamed so that others think twice before venturing to recruit foreign workers this way. If the system is strictly applied by qualified cadres and in complete coordination with the ministries of interior, labor and the municipalities, our streets will be clean and there will be no violators in our towns or cities. This measure will deter any sponsor from thinking of recruiting workers and letting them free on the streets to do whatever they want to do. The sponsors who are not in actual need of the workers they have brought to the country have dumped the country with surplus labor. This should be immediately stopped with stern punishments so as to rid the Kingdom of expatriates who are destroying everything in the country, not just its economy.
