I've been trying to think of some kind of identification for people in this country who are not citizens but have legitimately come here to work. Then it struck me that maybe we should do what Saudi Arabia does for people in their country who are not citizens. I spent almost 4 years there while my husband was working on their airplanes. (Ha! Doing the jobs the Saudi won't do)

Anyway, my husband got to go right first, but it took me 90 days for my clearance to go through before I go join him. Nobody gets into that country unless they go through a thorough investigation. (My husband got his clearance while he was training here for the job before going over there.) Once inside the country, they take your passport. (In this case, because there were so many of us, they allowed the company my husband was working for to hold the passports for these workers in case they had to leave in an emergency. When they took our passports, they gave my husband a document similar to a passport called an Aghama (I hope I spelled that right) with a Saudi stamp on it and all the info that was on our passports. It had both my husband's and my picture on it. My husband had to carry it with him at all times. Whenever we left the country together for a vacation or something, my husband had to turn in the Aghama and get his passport back to travel because we weren't allowed to take the Aghama out of the country. If I left alone, I just got my passport back and left because my husband was staying behind and needed the Aghama. Before you leave out, your passport is stamped with an exit visa. As you have to tell the Saudi government you are leaving they are the people who get it stamped. When you return to Saudi Arabia, you get an entry stamp at the airport to let you back in, but you better make sure you're on their computer at immigration control or you'll be on the next plane out of there.

So, maybe we need to start issuing Aghamas for people who are in this country legally, but are not citizens. That way we can keep track of them. Then if the law finds somebody who can't prove they're a citizen or doesn't have an Aghami, boot him out.