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FROM TOP: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; CHESNOT/GETTY IMAGES; DATA: PEW RESEARCH
Saudi Arabia Ends
A Ritzy Crack
Around midnight on Jan. 21, the Ritz-Carlton in
Riyadh hardly looks like the holding pen for some
of Saudi Arabia’s most wanted. Since November,
some of the kingdom’s richest princes, cabinet
officials, and businessmen have been detained
in the palatial five-star hotel as part of a sweep-
ing anticorruption purge. There are no armed
guards visible; only one police car is seen outside
the compound. In the well-lit lobby, with Arabic
music playing over speakers, government staffers
are scattered around cafe tables. There’s a buffet,
but nobody is eating.
On a couch near the reception desk, Sheikh
Saud Al Mojeb, the Saudi attorney general, does a
head count of detainees. So far, about 90 have been
released, having reached settlement deals with the
government. Fewer than 100 remain, including five
who are weighing proposed deals. Those who don’t
reach an agreement will be referred to prosecutors.
“The royal order was clear,” Al Mojeb says. “Those
who express remorse and agree to settle will have
any criminal proceedings against them dropped.”
The Saudi detention plan is winding down,
with authorities expecting the Ritz to be cleared
of detainees by the end of January. The govern-
ment sees it as a resounding success. One senior
official believes it will net more than $100 billion
in settlement deals. That money could be a shot
in the arm for the Saudi economy, still struggling
to recover from the 2014 drop in oil prices. The
payments have been a combination of cash, real
estate, stocks, and other assets and will likely be
managed by a government committee, according
to the official.Views have hardened as voters who never gave
immigration much thought have taken their cue
from party leaders, says Nathan Kalmoe, a polit-
ical scientist at Louisiana State University and
co-author ofNeither Liberal nor Conservative:
Ideological Innocence in the American Public.“The
people most likely to be swayed one way or the
other are the people who tend to pay less atten-
tion to politics,” he says.
Ending the stalemate will require both parties
to change. Democrats can’t blow off Republicans’
demands for enforcement of the law, as they’ve
done in the sanctuary cities movement, says
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center
for Immigration Studies, which favors curbs
on immigration.
Democrats would also do well to acknowledge
research indicating that low-skilled natives’ wages
fall when a flood of low-skilled immigrants compete
for their jobs. Employers often end up having to
raise pay when the government cuts back on visas—
as it did last summer with the H-2B program for
seasonal guest workers. Even some undocumented
workers see it that way. If undocumented immi-
grants were sent home, “they’d have to raise wages
for native-born Americans,” says Pedro Romero, a
38-year-old undocumented worker who arrived
from Mexico 18 years ago and cuts and lays custom
marble in Houston. “And see even then if they want
to work outside in the sun when it’s hot.” Support
for immigration would also be higher if the gov-
ernment spent some of the tax revenue from the
newcomers on aid to displaced workers and—this
is crucial—assimilating new immigrants.
Republicans, for their part, need to separate
themselves from the race-based rhetoric that some
elements of the party have embraced. That’s tough
considering that some of the basest language is now
coming from the president.
The rest of the world is watching. “Your current
president is very prominent in German media. It’s
really astonishing,” says Matthias Mayer, project
manager for Bertelsmann Stiftung, the foundation
that’s majority owner of publisher Bertelsmann
SE. Germany has gone to great lengths to exorcise
its Nazi past. Says Mayer: “That someone would
ban persons from specific countries, that is some-
thing that would be a right-wing fringe position in
Germany.” Getting this issue right is essential for
global businesses that employ diverse workforces.
America has found a path forward on immigration
in the past. It can do so again. —Peter Coy and
Sahil Kapur, with Isabel Reynolds and Thomas BlackTHE BOTTOM LINE Democrats and Republicans have moved
further apart in their views on immigration over the years, leading
to intractable differences over one of the core tenets of America.down
○ Government officials expect the kingdom’s
anticorruption purge will net $100 billion in payments○ Alwaleed POLITICS Bloomberg Businessweek January 29, 2018