Saudi- Foreign workers crowd offices as grace period nears end

(MENAFN- Arab News) Large crowds of expats gathered outside the building Department of Expatriates in Madinah to legalize their residency statuses. Some have been sleeping on the street's paved median. The department distributed numbers among the applicants in an attempt to organize the process. Some expats attributed the chaos to the close deadline of the grace period, which expires on Nov. 3. "I have been waiting for three days to finalize my case, and I am still waiting," said Ahmed Noseer. Officials informed him that the procedures should be completed in three days, he added. Women were among the crowd, including Indonesian housemaids who sat in the shade of the surrounding residential buildings waiting to finalize their proceedings. Wael Khaled, an Egyptian national, said: "I have been checking in with the department for several days, but they have not yet finalized my status as I await to depart permanently to my country." The director of the department, Col. Mohammed Faihan Al-Mutairi, told a local newspaper that the administration is working morning and evening shifts, until ten o'clock at night, to deal with the large number of expats seeking to depart permanently. More than 300 cases are finalized every day, he said. Regarding the gathering of expats, he commented: "We are monitoring the crowd via cameras and we filter them through the entrance gate, which organizes their access to the department." He continued, "There are no more than 500 people gathered outside the building now, and they are keen on completing their application as soon as possible due to the nearing of the expiration date of the grace period."