The Saudi police have been carrying out raids regularly on foreigners-dominated areas lately to arrest the illegals or the foreign workers overstaying their visas. They keep the arrestees at the deportation camps and send them home, said sources.

Some 700 such Bangladeshis returned home on Wednesday. Earlier, many others had been sent back from the Saudi deportation camps.

There are deportation camps almost in every city in the kingdom, the sources said.

The hauling of undocumented workers is a normal phenomenon in the country, but the authorities have intensified the raids under a security campaign launched in May this year, added the source.

In most cases, the Saudi government deports the arrestees. It releases only those who can arrange and show the necessary legal documents.

"In between 300 and 500 Bangladeshis get arrested and are taken to deportation camps every month," said a high official of the expatriate welfare and overseas employment ministry.

Over the last couple of months, Saudi police had picked up over 800 Bangladeshis. Of them, only eight could produce valid documents necessary for stay while the rest were proved undocumented, he said.

According to the ministry official, the number of undocumented Bangladeshis is not very high compared to over 1.5 million Bangladeshis staying in the kingdom.

He said the expatriate ministry or the Bureau of Manpower Export and Training (BMET) does not keep any record of the Bangladeshis returning home after deportation from abroad.

AKM Shamsuddin, secretary in charge of the expatriate welfare ministry, also could not say how many people have returned from Saudi Arabia recently or how many are still at the deportation camps.

He said the ministry is not aware of the people who go to Saudi Arabia on hajj, omrah, and visit visas. "The ministry deals only with the workers who go abroad through recruiting agents."

He said the government's immigration ordinance 1982 and the wage earners welfare fund rules 2002 also do not provide for any step for the Bangladeshis arrested or facing deportation for illegal entry or overstay in foreign countries.

A leading Bangladeshi recruiting agency official told The Daily Star that recently Saudi police had picked over 20,000 foreign workers for illegal entry or overstaying. Of those, around 4,000 were Bangladeshis and most of them had been deported.

Many foreigners including Bangladeshis go to the kingdom on visas for hajj, omrah, or visit, and instead of leaving the country, they take jobs and stay there month after month.

He said the Saudi government usually bears the cost of sending back the undocumented foreigners to their respective countries. It has a special budget for the job. Many foreign workers including Bangladeshis surrender to the police and take the opportunity to fly home for free, the source observed.

A high official of the government who once worked for Bangladesh mission in Jeddah told The Daily Star that if an illegal foreign worker is caught in Jeddah, the Saudi government bears the expenses of his return. But if he is caught in other cities, the government realises the ticket money from the company concerned.

There are two huge camps in Jeddah for the arrested illegals, he said. The Saudi authorities confine the illegals in the deportation camps till issuance of an out pass from the respective embassies or an exit visa.

RECOMMENDATIONS ON MANPOWER EXPORTS
UNB from Dhaka adds: An inter-ministerial secretary-level committee has formulated a set of recommendations to effectively deal with the country's manpower exports.

A senior foreign ministry official said the recommendations are aimed at sending Bangladeshi workers abroad after giving them some training, exploring new markets for workforce, and ensuring their safety and security abroad.

The recommendations will be placed at a ministerial committee meeting on overseas expatriate welfare affairs in a week for approval.

The official blamed the recent incidents of detention or deportation of Bangladeshi workers on unscrupulous manpower and travel agents.

"It's like a devil's trap. People go abroad for jobs on valid passports, but at the end of the day, they find themselves trapped as they don't get the jobs promised," the official added.

If the proposed recommendations are implemented such unfortunate incidents might lessen, he said, adding that the expatriate welfare ministry plans to develop awareness among foreign job seekers through advertisements and other means.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) Advisor MH Selim MP said few "touts" were responsible for the incidents of deportation.

"This is due to absence of tight guidelines," he told UNB, replying to a query about deportation of 700 Bangladeshis from Saudi Arabia. "We should have a proper manpower policy," he added.