More than 300 South Korean workers detained in the United States in an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia will be released and brought home, the South Korean government has announced.
Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said Sunday that South Korea and the US had finalised negotiations on the release of the workers whom US immigration authorities had detained on Thursday.
He said South Korea plans to send a charter plane to bring the workers home as soon as the remaining administrative steps are completed.
US immigration authorities said on Friday that they had detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided Hyundai’s sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia, where the Korean automaker makes electric vehicles.
A spokesperson said the immigration component of the raid came as part of a larger, months-long investigation into labour practices at the site.
Video released by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside.
Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waists.
Trump targets immigrant workforce
Since US President Donald Trump returned to power in January, ICE has been bolstered by record funding and new latitude to conduct raids as part of a crackdown on immigrants and refugees.
The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, said the US labour force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July.
The president has said he wants to deport “the worst of the worst” criminals. But ICE figures show a rise in the detainment of noncriminals.
This latest raid highlights the disruptive effect Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown is having on his efforts to attract foreign investment. The Hyundai-LG complex is part of the biggest foreign investment in the state of Georgia.
Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea’s biggest automaker, began manufacturing electric vehicles a year ago at the $7.6bn plant, which employs about 1,200 people. The company has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.
Agents focused their operation on the plant that is still under construction.
Most of the people detained were taken to an immigration detention centre in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line. None has been charged with any crimes yet, Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said during a news conference on Friday, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
A ‘serious risk to the country’
South Korea, a close ally of the US, expressed “concern and regret” over the raid targeting its citizens and sent diplomats to the site.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on Saturday said President Lee Jae-myung had instructed officials to swiftly resolve the matter, stressing that the rights and interests of South Korean nationals and the business operations of South Korean companies investing in the US “must not be infringed upon”, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said in a report.
South Korea’s opposition People Power Party (PPP) reacted angrily to the detentions, warning they “could pose a serious risk” to the country.
Senior PPP spokesperson Park Sung-hoon blamed Lee for the incident, saying his “pragmatic diplomacy” towards the US “failed to ensure both the safety of citizens and the competitiveness” of South Korean businesses.
He said Lee’s government even promised at least $50bn of investments during his recent meeting with Trump, a gesture that resulted only in a “crackdown” against South Korean citizens.
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