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	Monthly figures	Cumulated figures
3/2011	33,323	33,323
4/2011	34,311	67,634
5/2011	30,504	98,138
6/2011	38,703	136,841
7/2011	29,724	166,565
8/2011	30,751	197,316
9/2011	43,704	241,020
10/2011	36,087	277,107
11/2011	53,014	330,121
12/2011	54,384	384,505
Total 3 to 12/ 2011	384,505
1/2012	47,473	431,978
2/2012	48,826	480,804
3/2012	46,413	527,217
4/2012	49,296	576,513
5/2012	50,734	627,247
6/2012	53,851	681,098
7/2012	44,693	725,791
8/2012	60,972	786,763
9/2012	51,963	838,726
10/2012	41,944	880,670
11/2012	51,049	931,719
12/2012	47,288	979,007
Total 2012	594,502
1/2013	46,579	1,025,586
2/2013	51,009	1,076,595
3/2013	52,322	1,128,917
4/2013	53,713	1,182,630
5/2013	61,203	1,243,833
6/2013	50,157	1,293,990
7/2013	30,585	1,324,575
8/2013	29,395	1,353,970
9/2013	34,266	1,388,236
10/2013	32,300	1,420,536
11/2013	137,569	1,558,105
12/2013	96,854	1,654,959
Total 2013	675,952
01/2014	55,062	1,710,021
02/2014	52,290	1,762,311
03/2014	46,628	1,808,939
04/2014	46,628	1,855,566
05/2014	49,437	1,905,003
06/2014	50,543	1,955,546
07/2014	44,396	1,999,942
08/2014	43,728	2,043,670
09/2014	56,700	2,100,370
10/2014	43,002	2,143,372
11/2014	46,246	2,189,618
Total 1 to 11/ 2014	534,659

Source: Ministry of Interior.

1. Definition

Saudi Arabia for years has been routinely performing deportations of illegal workers, during amnesty periods and rounding up operations of various scales.
Nitaqat, a massive program of saudization of the work force, was formally launched by the Saudi Ministry of Labour in September 2011 (Ministerial Resolution n°4040, dated 12/10/1432 H.).
The regulation establishes minimum shares reserved for Saudi citizens in a company’s labor force, depending on the size and on the activity sector of the business. Based on their level of compliance to Saudization quotas, the program classifies the private firms into four categories: Premium, Green, Yellow and Red.
Premium and Green categories include the companies with highest Saudization rates, while Yellow and Red include the ones with low rates.
Within this process, ahead of a crackdown on irregular workers/ sojourners, an amnesty period and mandatory regularization campaign were decided, starting April 3rd, 2013. The amnesty allows workers to try to sort out their administrative situation (renew expired documents; register their current employer as their sponsor; register changes in profession and in activity sector, etc.), or leave without paying a penalty.
Workers deported during the amnesty were the ones unable to regularise (for lack of documents, using forged ones, having a criminal record, having absconded, etc.), as well as workers found to redundant under newly established regulations for hiring foreign labourers in compliance with Nitaqat quotas.
The amnesty period expired on November 3rd, 2013. Since then, systematic country-wide raid operations are conducted by Ministry of Labour (in work sites) and by Ministry of Interior (in locations inhabited by aliens).
Deported workersare barred from coming back.

2. Institution which provides data

Ministry of interior

3. Data availability

Monthly figures for irregulars’ arrests and deportation were put online on the Ministry of Interior’s website (chapter “Security News”), until July 2015. Figures were computed by Hijrah months, in Arabic only.
As of 21 September 2015, deportation and arrests’ records are still unavailable online.

Date of access: 21 September 2015

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