South Korean businesses have suspended at least 22 U.S. projects after an ICE raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia detained hundreds of South Korean workers.
Some 475 employees, including 300 South Koreans, were taken into custody Thursday at the Savannah-area battery plant. Videos released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials showed the detained workers in shackles and chains. The raid shocked Seoul, a key U.S. ally, where people expressed a sense of betrayal by Washington.
The facility was part of a $4.3 billion joint venture that was slated for completion later this year. It was expected to create 8,500 jobs that would support the car company’s nearby electric vehicle plan, but construction on the factory was put on pause after the raid.
Work on at least 22 other factory sites with ties to South Korea has also been halted, reported The Korean Economic Daily. Those facilities are involved in industries related to automobiles, shipbuilding, steel, and electrical equipment.
South Korean companies with U.S. business interests have cancelled travel plans and recalled their U.S.-based staff, fearing that their employees could be affected by more raids.
“Korean workers are being treated like criminals for building factories that Washington itself lobbied for,” a company executive in Seoul told the business newspaper. “If this continues, investment in the U.S. could be reconsidered.”
President Donald Trump defended the raid, claiming Friday that the employees were in the U.S. “illegally” and that U.S. companies needed to focus on training their American employees in order to do the jobs they would otherwise outsource.
An immigration attorney representing several of the detained South Koreans, Charles Kuck, told the Associated Press that the president’s statement wasn’t just wrong—as many of the workers were authorized to work under the B-1 business visitor visa program—but was basically unfeasible in the short term, as no U.S. companies make the machines utilized at the Georgia factory.
“They had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site—work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do,” the AP reported.
Industry officials in Seoul have warned that the projects—collectively worth more than $101 billion—could face serious delays or be placed on indefinite hiatus unless Washington agrees to bilateral talks for new visa arrangements for South Korean employees.
The South Korean workers were expected to be released back to their home country on a chartered plane Wednesday afternoon, though the flight was reportedly delayed “due to circumstances on the U.S. side,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry told the BBC.
The post Trump’s ICE Raids Just Cost the U.S. a Massive Business Investment appeared first on New Republic.
