A massive US immigration raid on a battery factory that ensnared hundreds of South Korean workers has left many of the Asian nation’s lawmakers and investors feeling shaken.
Seoul has urged Washington to respect the rights of its investors and is sending a plane to bring home its affected citizens, amid mounting anger at home over the incident.
US immigration authorities targeted the construction site of a Hyundai-LG battery factory in the southern state of Georgia on Thursday, arresting about 475 people, including South Korean workers.
Photo: EPA
Officials in the US called it the largest such raid on a single site carried out under US President Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-immigration crackdown.
Footage released by US authorities showed detained South Korean workers in handcuffs and with chains around their ankles being loaded onto an inmate transportation bus.
The raid caught Seoul’s officials off guard and made front-page headlines in South Korea, which has pledged hundreds of billions of US dollars of investment into the US in an effort to swerve Trump’s most onerous tariffs.
“Launching a massive crackdown while urging ‘invest’ — is this how you treat an ally?” one headline in the Hankyoreh newspaper read.
“This incident has left the Korean people feeling betrayed,” it added.
THE FACTORY
The site of the raid is a US$4.3 billion joint venture between two South Korean firms — Hyundai and LG Energy Solution — to build a battery cell manufacturing facility in Georgia.
The companies say the plant, slated to open next year, would generate thousands of jobs and eventually produce batteries for 300,000 electric vehicles per year.
LG Energy Solution said there had been “no change in our initial timeline for production.”
However, one expert said that the impact of the raid could “lead to significant timeline delays and increased costs” for South Korean investment projects in the US.
“It is also unfavourable for the US, as it suggests that foreign investments and their implementation will be substantially delayed,” said Kim Yang-hee, professor of economics at Daegu University.
“This whole case highlights a considerable gap between principle and reality,” she said
ILLEGAL WORKERS?
LG Energy Solution — which had dozens of its staff detained, as well as about 250 it believes were hired by its contractor — declined to provide details of what visas they were using, citing an ongoing investigation.
However, experts said the majority of detained South Korean workers were likely to have been on visas that do not allow for hands-on building work.
“It’s almost certain they were there on ESTA or B-1 visas, which permit only business meetings, not construction activities,” US-licensed attorney Yum Seung-yul said.
For manual work, an H-1B visa is required, but approvals have slowed since Trump came back into office, he said.
Other foreign companies running similar projects in the US might have taken the same approach, he added.
LIKELY IMPACT
Experts said the crackdown could have a chilling effect by disrupting South Korean companies’ investment plans in the US or delaying their implementation.
It could even derail some projects altogether, they said.
Following the raid, companies are likely “to send only essential workers to the US while suspending all other trips,” said Kim Dae-jong, professor of business at Sejong University in Seoul.
Faced with bureaucratic hurdles in obtaining H-1B visas, many firms had opted for ESTAs or B-1 visas as a “workaround” — but now this is no longer viable, he said.
“It will take much longer for companies to decide on and carry out their US investments, as it will take more time to resolve the visa situation. It will weigh heavily on their investment decisions,” Kim said.
DEAL ‘CONCLUDED’
Seoul on Sunday said that a deal to release and repatriate the detained workers had been “concluded” with the US, and that a chartered plane would fly them home once administrative procedures were complete.
A diplomatic official yesterday said that the government’s goal was to bring them all back — but if any wished to challenge their arrests in US immigration court, they could do so while remaining in detention.
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