The Arabian Peninsula in general is a very harsh place for living, and this due to the landscape and climate of the peninsula. The landscape is dominated by deserts, and there's not a single river that has water throughout all of the year, and it is scorching hot for most of the year.
Living on the coast and in the interior of the peninsula has its differences. Living on the coast allows the people to trade with the other regions and thus to manage to get all the things they need for living, and also with the new technologies they can make the saline water into freshwater which is essential for survival. Living in the interior on the other hand, is much harder, and because of the lack of basic resources for life, namely food and water, people are living a nomadic life and constantly move from one place to another so that they are able to survive.
Spain governed the colony of Louisiana for nearly four decades, from 1763 through 1802, returning it to France for a few months until the Louisiana Purchase conveyed it to the United States in 1803.
While it could be from literally anywhere, I'd assume most of them came from the Soviet Union, Germany, France, and Poland, along with plenty of other smaller countries like Austria, Hungary, and even Greece.
