The State Department said on Friday that it had ramped up its capacity at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to process more business visas for South Koreans, as the Trump administration tries to repair the damage from an immigration raid on a large South Korean-run factory in Georgia.
That operation in September was once lauded by immigration officials as the largest workplace raid in U.S. history. But the images of people in handcuffs and shackles set off anger in South Korea, where officials said that it was a violation of the workers’ rights and that the raid would discourage companies from investing in the United States.
The Trump administration has offered the 317 South Korean workers who were detained in the raid the chance to return to the plant in Ellabell, Ga. They flew home in September but some later returned to the factory, a battery plant owned jointly by Hyundai Motor Group, one of the world’s biggest carmakers, and LG Energy Solution, after the State Department reissued their visas.
Many of the former detainees have applied for new visas. The State Department has encouraged those who were previously in Georgia on a visa waiver program to apply for B-1 short-term business visas and has issued new guidance on the activities allowed under them.
The State Department said on Friday that it had added the capacity last month to conduct more than 5,000 interviews above normal levels. It said it was implementing President Trump’s “commitment to U.S. reindustrialization by facilitating legitimate business travel, including additional consular resources for visas supporting South Korean investments in the United States, while maintaining the highest standards of national security.”
The State Department did not specify how many additional staff were tasked with processing business visa applications from South Koreans.
The Trump administration’s moves to encourage the return of South Korean workers to the United States contrasts with its wider crackdown on immigration and foreign labor, including encouraging companies to hire American workers. It recently imposed a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, which confer temporary status in the United States for skilled workers.
Mr. Trump, who once defended the raid in Georgia, later spoke in support of letting in foreigners with skills that he said few Americans had. His position has prompted criticism from some sections of his conservative base but he has pushed back.
“Batteries are very dangerous to make,” Mr. Trump said at an investment forum in Washington this month, referring to the Georgia operation. “They’re complex — much more complex than people understand.” He added that South Korean companies had made huge investments to build the factory.
“They were told to get out,” he said, “and I said, ‘Stop it, don’t be stupid.’ And we worked it out, and now they’re teaching our people how to do it.”
José Muñoz, the chief executive of Hyundai Motor Company, which is part of the Hyundai Motor Group, said this month at a business forum in Singapore that the White House had called him to apologize for what had happened.
“They were not aware, they didn’t know,” Mr. Muñoz said, adding that the company was “making big commitments to invest in the country.”
Despite the Trump administration’s efforts, many of the South Koreans who were detained in Georgia have said they are not interested in returning to work in the United States. But some have to because they have been assigned to the factory. Some have said they are waiting for their visas.
Mira Park, a visa consultant in Seoul advising dozens of the former detainees, said that wait times for B-1 visas had become unusually long in recent months. Obtaining a visa was taking more than a month starting in late October, instead of just eight days, she said.
The State Department said the average wait time for a visa interview for South Koreans seeking B-1 status was under two weeks. That is shorter than those in many other cities, where getting an interview could take from weeks to more than a year, according to the department’s website for visa wait times.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
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