Washington agreed to allow South Korean workers traveling on short-term business visas or on a visa waiver program to build factories in the United States, the South Korean government said Wednesday.
The agreement was reached in Washington on Tuesday when officials from both countries negotiated how to resolve visa problems in the wake of a massive immigration raid on an electric vehicle battery factory under construction in Ellabell, Ga. A total of 317 South Koreans were arrested and placed in handcuffs and chains during the Sept. 4 raid, outraging a key U.S. ally.
Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution, both South Korean companies, had brought in hundreds of engineers to help build the factory as a joint venture. They rotated them in and out of the country, mostly on short-term B-1 business visas or on a visa waiver program called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA.
But U.S. immigration authorities accused the Koreans of working illegally when they arrested them. After a week in a detention center, all but one of the workers were flown home on a chartered plane.
After the Georgia raid, South Korea warned that its businesses would hesitate to invest in the United States unless visa hurdles were removed for their engineers.
In the meeting on Tuesday, the U.S. side confirmed that workers visiting on B-1 visas or ESTA would be allowed to “install, service or repair” equipment bought from abroad to build South Korean plants in the United States, South Korea’s foreign ministry said in a news release.
During the meeting, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said that Washington welcomed outside engineers who were helping to build South Korean plants, according to the ministry. Mr. Landau also pledged to open a special desk at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to help process visas for them, it said.
Such assurances were expected to encourage South Korean businesses to dispatch engineers again to resume construction at the Georgia plant site.
“Under the latest agreement between the two governments, we will make thorough preparations and work to construct and operate our plant in the United States,” LG Energy Solution said in a statement on Wednesday. Most of the workers detained on Sept. 4 were engineers from LG or its subcontractors.
Along with ESTA and B-1 visas, South Korean companies building factories in the United States sometimes used B-2 tourist visas. They said that Washington did not issue enough long-term work visas for their engineers, even as it pressed South Korea to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to build new factories and threatened to increase tariffs on Korean imports as leverage.
Some of the workers repatriated from the United States said they were so traumatized by their treatment that they did not want to return to the job. Others said they were willing to go back to finish building the plant if both governments sorted out visa problems.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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