South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has said the detention of 475 foreign workers in the US could make companies question whether there was any future in investing in the country by setting up manufacturing plants there.
“The situation is extremely bewildering,” Lee added, adding it was common practice for Korean firms to send workers to set up overseas factories.
“If that’s no longer allowed, establishing manufacturing facilities in the US will only become more difficult… making companies question whether it’s worth doing at all,” he added.
The incident at a new Hyundai electric vehicle battery plant in the US state of Georgia has shaken the relationship between the US and South Korea, whose companies are investing billions in the US – investment that it had been President Donald Trump’s policy to encourage.
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Lee spoke shortly before more than 300 South Koreans who were detained in a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai arrived back home.
He said he was strongly opposed to the handcuffing of workers, many of whom were working legally, having been contracted by battery supplier LG Energy Solution, and added it was unclear whether the returning workers would be leaving under “voluntary departure” or being deported.
The South Korean foreign ministry said it had called for the US Congress to support a new visa for Korean firms. Many of those detained allegedly had the wrong kind of visa, but it remains unclear what the various immigration statuses of the 475 people arrested were.
The ministry said the detainees so far released by US authorities included 316 Koreans, 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian.
Hyundai’s chief executive José Muñoz said the raid will delay the factory’s opening by at least two months, as the company needs to find new workers to finish the job.
Detainees were shackled around their hands, ankles and waist. Others had plastic ties around their wrists as they boarded a Georgia inmate-transfer bus to a detention centre 100 miles away at Folkston. Many had tried to escape the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents by hiding in air ducts and running into nearby ponds.
It has not yet been established how many of the 475 were working illegally, but lawyers have so far established several cases where workers with valid visas were arrested. Non-Koreans arrested during the operation are thought to remain in Ice detention.
It is thought many of the workers had B1 or B1/B2 visas, which are issued for business trips of up to six months, a commonly used visa by engineers and scientific advisers. Nearly 5,000 B1/B2 visas were issued to South Koreans in the first five months of this year, according to government records, a small proportion of the 2.86 million issued to all countries over the same period. Obtaining a B1 visa requires submitting proof of the worker’s credentials, such as degree certificates, and proof of employment in someone’s home country.
Other workers at the Hyundai plant had entered the US under the visa waiver scheme, which allows travel and work for 90 days as long as the holder has an ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) certificate.
Those returning to South Korea were not travelling under a “voluntary departure,” which means they have acknowledged they violated immigration laws and will not be allowed back into the US. In this case, removal documents did not contain an admission of wrongdoing, and South Korean officials have demanded that the workers do not face adverse consequences.
US President Donald Trump, in response to the raid, said the US government would make it “quickly and legally possible” for foreign firms to bring workers into the country if they respected its immigration laws.
The investment from Hyundai was set to create 8,500 new jobs in the region and was signed off after negotiations by Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, and then President Joe Biden three years ago. Since then, local economic-development groups had spent over $350m to improve the roads and deepen the area’s ports so larger ships bringing parts in and cars out could dock. A large effort had been made locally to house Korean workers and provide services for them.
Protestors greeted the returnees at Seoul’s airport with a banner that read: “Public outrage over detention of 300 Koreans, shackled up and treated like major criminals! Why shall [we] continue US investments after such back-stabbing?”
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