The Department of Homeland Security has already started bragging about its agency’s biggest single-site enforcement operation at a Hyundai plant in Georgia—but one close U.S. ally isn’t happy at all.
Most of the nearly 500 people arrested in a massive raid at a Hyundai plant Thursday were South Korean citizens, said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Steve Schrank, who oversaw the operation. The New York Times reported that the detainees included employees and executives at two South Korean companies, Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solutions, a battery manufacturer.
Now South Korea seems seriously pissed.
In a statement Friday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry warned that the “economic activities of Korean investment companies and the rights and interests of Korean citizens must not be unfairly infringed upon during U.S. law enforcement operations.”
The Foreign Ministry added that it would dispatch diplomats to respond to the raid and that it had urged the U.S. Embassy in Seoul “to exercise extreme caution” in regard to the rights of Korean citizens.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong confirmed Friday that a “large” number of the individuals detained were South Korean, but did not provide an exact figure.
Schrank, the officer who oversaw the operation, declared that the raid “in fact was the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of homeland security investigations.”
While Schrank claimed the workers arrested were either undocumented or working illegally, he said that some lawful U.S. citizens and permanent residents had been detained and released.
Trump met with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung late last month, in a conversation that spanned several geopolitical topics—and also included the topic of forced prostitution.
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