It’s short, I’m guessing.
Why would you give them grief? It seems they already explained their rationale, not that they owe you any explanation. Of course there are other considerations besides living in the vicinity.
And?
There is no idea of clergy in the religion itself.
The government bureaucracies can find it useful to “license” persons, but this is not a religious action, it is a government regulation action by a secular power. There is no “ordinations”
The only religious qualification inside the religion itself is to have the respect of the community or a set of believers to be named the Imam.
So the Saudi bureaucracy, needing some way to feel comfortable that there are not fakers trying to take the valuable (limited) Hajj visas, have a secular screening of some officer of a mosque (which is in places like the USA I think self-mandating, other places there may be the governmental regulation of the secular powers).
Not difficult to understand I think