passport experiences

Submitted by Henk Middelraad (United States), Apr 7, 2006 at 17:40

I worked for Aramco between 1964 and 1970.
THe reason that US passport were taken from employees after entering the Kingdom was that many of the people had a new passport and never been exposed to the requirements. Many construction hands lost their passports by improperly managing their personal affaires.

Aramco created an office to prevent the many demands for substitute passports by starting an office that would obtain the passports for safekeeping after arrival in the kingdom.

From my experiences it was quite efficient and I never had any problems to get it back when I needed it for repratriation.

Evidently it turned into a local law for everyone to turn his passport in after passing customs.

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