The Saudi government has announced a two-month grace period to expatriates who have failed to legalise their status during the seven-month amnesty period.
Arab News reports that Saudi Arabia’s Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Naif issued the order to the expatriates who have failed to complete their residency correction procedures at the Passport Department during the amnesty which ended on November 3, 2013.
Passport Department Director General Major General Suleiman Al-Yahya said the interior minister had ordered the department to complete the correction procedures for expatriates whose papers were being processed by the Labour Ministry during the amnesty, before March 1.
Earlier, the authorities had to penalise illegal workers with two years’ imprisonment along with fines of up to SR100,000.
More than four million foreigners rectified their labour and residency status during the amnesty period, while around one million illegal workers left the Kingdom. The seven-month grace period benefited nearly half of all foreigners living in the Kingdom.
The original three-month deadline for the amnesty, announced in April, was extended from July after it became evident that thousands of applications would not be processed in time as authorities struggled to keep up with the influx.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
