As the main port of arrival for all Muslims coming to do their pilgrimage, Jeddah has served as the main entry point for centuries. And the neighborhood of Karantina was used as a place where these pilgrims stayed until they finished their Haj.
However nowadays, those residing in this part of the city are illegal immigrants attracted by Saudi Arabia’s wealth and a chance to change their lives. As an area where government supervision remains rare, some have even lived there for generations.
All over the country this kind of slums exists where their number is estimated by recent reports to hundreds of thousands. Although they live outside the law it seems that they are being unofficially tolerated since it will be too costly to deport them back to their own country. However these past few weeks it appears that the Saudi media has decided to notify the population about these “infiltrators” that they believe are the cause of everything that may go wrong in the country. In a statement he made the Interior Minister announced that the media is exaggerating by accusing these illegal immigrants unjustly since he believes that many citizens use them and contribute to the problem.
Actually for him it is very difficult to deal with them once they are in Saudi Arabia because there is no way to prove the nationality of these immigrants so countries like Yemen, Sudan or Somalia where they come from can’t just accept them without proof. That is why according to him the Saudi government is strengthening labor laws by telling companies they will be fined if employing illegal immigrants or by offering incentives to those that employ non citizens but with a legal status.
KSA: Illegal Immigrants and Cause to Effect
