Th authorities are very vague in their statements, on purpose.
According to the article, 450 were arrested, over 300 are South Korean, but the article makes it impossible to tell who entered illegally, and who had incorrect visas or expired ones, and their various nationalities.
What is clear is that this has escalated to a diplomatic crisis at the highest levels on the Korean side. Definitely bodes well for future interest in investing in advanced manufacturing in the US.
It seems to me Hyundai is at fault here, or they just outright organized this.
Koreans can come to US without visa, but that visa doesn’t allow you to work. That means no hands on work at the site. Considering the raids happening at the factory itself, I would really be surprised if they are only there to receive training by their US counterparts, which seems pretty unlikely.
As immigrants, our visa status has been tracked by day one, and constantly validated. It boggles my mind why Hyundai didn’t just pay to apply for H2B visa, to invite those workers to come here legally. Yeah it takes time and money but it is the correct thing to do
Yes, they all lacked work visas. Allegedly Hyundai subcontracted out the work to third parties who didn't bother to get work visas for their employees.
Maybe Korean companies are used to getting away with that kind of thing? Seems fairly short sighted given the current focus on immigration.
I don’t doubt that some Americans are deported each year from South Korea but I was unable to find any examples in the news other than this one in 2017. I wonder how regular it really is, or maybe it doesn’t get reported by any news source?
I mean, I understand public humiliation is something Usians like, but was it necessary here? To me, punishing the workers is so unimaginably cruel and pointless...
Assuming that they are in illegally, the U.S. is the party that should be upset. If you are going to do business in the U.S. then you need to follow us laws.
You can say you're (rightfully) upset, without throwing employees of a major investor onto a jail without functioning toilets.
The problem is that the US is sending deeply conflicting messages. Does it want Hyundai's investment or not? It's not that Hyundai needs to build a factory in the middle of nowhere in Georgia.
It wants Hyundai's investment and it wants to create American jobs and also have Hyundai follow the laws. The extremity of the right is fueled by an apparently prevalent reluctance to enforce any rules.
It sounds weirdly like you’re saying that one of the conditions of Hyundai doing business in the US is that we turn a blind eye to them breaking our labor laws, but I’m sure you couldn’t really mean that.
The meaning of the comment of the person you're replying to doesn't significantly change if you replace "employees of" to "contractors of". You're picking at nits.
> It's not that Hyundai needs to build a factory in the middle of nowhere in Georgia.
Then why is it doing so? I'm lost.
Are you implying that it's an act of charity towards the US with zero expectation of or potential for profit? Then why doesn't Hyundai just save the management trouble and donate to a charity?
But if you take things at face value, this isn’t a case where ICE is going berserker mode. They went through investigation and obtained search warrants.
Regardless how they handle detention, the only conclusion is to send them back. Thankfully it seems swift so the workers won’t endure long uncertainty.
Last but not least. One of the arguments of said investment, is to boost local employment, in exchange of other benefits, mostly tax reduction. It is a two way door
> 5:10 "475 were illegally present in the United States"
Not quite; The figure includes those with visa.
"Illegally present in the United States or in violation of their presence in the united states, working unlawfully"
This also leaves open the question of what "violation of the visa" entails here. They may well have been working within their visas, only for ICE to arbitrarily rule otherwise.
It gets a little confusing because ESTA(which South Koreans are eligible for) is valid for both tourist and business use, and is a visa waiver.
As this comment[1] states with an official source:
> A B-1 visa may be granted to specialized workers going to the United States to install, service, or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery purchased from a company outside of the United States, or to train U.S. workers to perform such services.
Maybe the business use of ESTA also covers the above use cases?
Regardless I am glad the workers get to go home. If it is illegal I’d imagine the company should be at fault.