ICE raid arrests 475 employees at Georgia Hyundai plant; most are South Korean Nationals

Many of the LG employees arrested were on business trips with various visas or under a visa waiver programme, officials say.

South Korea's Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun said he felt a "great sense of responsibility for the arrest of our citizens" as he presided over an emergency meeting about the issue on Saturday.

He said the government had set up an Overseas Korean Protection Task Force to respond to the arrests and that he may travel to Washington if needed.

"Immediately after this incident became known, the President stressed that U.S. law enforcement actions must not unjustly infringe upon the rights of our nationals or the economic activities of our Korean-invested companies," he said.

Dump continues working hard for that Nobel Peace Prize nomination.

Part 3 of article in OP

On Saturday, LG Energy Solution announced it was sending its Chief Human Resources Officer Kim Ki-soo to the Georgia site on Sunday.

"We are making all-out efforts to secure the swift release of detained individuals from our company and partner firms," it said in a statement.

"We are confirming regular medications for families through an emergency contact network for detainees and plan to request that necessary medications be delivered to those detained."

The company said it was suspending most business trips to the US and directing employees on assignment in the US to return home immediately.

South Korean media widely described the raid as a "shock," with the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper warning it could have "a chilling effect on the activities of our businesses in the United States".

The factory, which makes new electric vehicles, had been touted by Georgia's Republican governor as the biggest economic development project in the state's history, employing 1,200 people.

The arrested workers were being held at an ICE facility in Folkston, Georgia, until the agency decides where to move them next.

LG Energy Solution said 47 of its employees and about 250 workers for contractors at the joint venture factory were detained.

Send them to El Salvador!

It's time to start arresting the employers who employ illegal workers.

Hyundai is co-owned by South Korea, R5 . It invested $5.545 billion to build that plant in Georgia.

This action is going to deter any potential future foreign investment here in the US and may cause other foreign companies established here to close up shop.

It's just another step by the Dump regime to destroy this nation in every possible way.

Correction to my R6 comment

Hyundai Motor Group is fully owned by South Korea. The electric battery plant in Georgia is a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solutions, also a South Korean company.

[Quote] Schrank* noted some of the workers may have been contractors or subcontractors. A Hyundai spokesperson told CNN he does not believe anyone arrested was a direct employee of Hyundai Motor Company.

[Quote] “We are reviewing our processes to ensure that all parties working on our projects maintain the same high standards of legal compliance that we demand of ourselves. This includes thorough vetting of employment practices by contractors and subcontractors,” the company said in a statement Friday night, adding, “Hyundai has zero tolerance for those who don’t follow the law.”

[Quote] Being undocumented in the United States, whether by crossing the border without authorization or overstaying a visa, is typically considered a civil violation rather than a criminal offense. Employers across the US rely on the federal E-Verify system, launched more than 20 years ago, to check the legal work eligibility of new hires. However, officials in the Trump administration criticized the system for being unreliable, without putting forward a more effective alternative.

* Steven Schrank is the Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge of this raid

He’s just following orders, making America weak and driving our allies into the arms of China. This is part of the butterfly revolution. America has to completely collapse in order to become a network of city state dictatorships.

R6/R7 - it's immaterial who owns the company - foreign or American. The companies are operating in the US under US law. The employees are working in the US and are therefore subject to strict federal legal visa requirements and proper paperwork to be employed legally and work in the US. The companies are subject to meeting federal and local state legal requirements when employing all workers. The companies are either knowingly hiring illegal workers or they are not doing due diligence to ensure their workers are legally able to be employed under federal and local state laws.

If the employers were properly prosecuted and fined, then the majority of US employers would eventually stop employing illegal workers because of the consequences - which would then stop a large chunk of the flood of illegal workers into the US.

If it's so important to the Trump administration and American voters that only legally entitled employees are working in the US, then that would be the logical thing to do. However, the Trump administration are protecting employers and instead making a show of targeting "illegals" for the spectacle, the fear factor and for political capital.

This is really helping with the price of eggs, electricity, and gas!

YES R11! It will eventually increase inflation on all those items!

Hyundai would have been courted and extended tax breaks to encourage the establishment of factories in the U.S. primarily to create jobs for those legally authorized to work in the U.S. The scale of this suggests that they are the bad actors and they should probably be embarrassed. I doubt these were 475 employees on short term “business trips.”

I may be misunderstanding the situation and I’m happy to be educated on it.

There’s more of an explanation in this article. There weren’t a lot of visas given for employees with specialized technical skills, so South Korea was sending technical experts on business visas. Part of the question is, why were the technical visas denied in the first place?

Hyundai was promising to create 25,000 new jobs in the US by 2028.

Employers hiring workers not legally eligible to work in the US must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

R16, will Elon Musk prosecute himself? The people who are enforcing these laws are themselves not following the law. ICE is ignoring habeas corpus. The military was ignoring established law when it blew up the Venezuelan ship because it may have been carrying drugs. And the President- the same person who previously boasted that he could shoot someone in broad daylight in Times Square if he wanted to, and his supporters wouldn’t blink - has had the courts declare him above the law for anything he does as President.

I think ICE should just arrest everyone and deport us all. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.

Actually this is egregious. Sending your own illegals to build your product in another country? Is this plant UAW?

This is some kind of shakedown. As we speak, someone at Hyundai is paying $$ into some MAGA slush fund to prevent their people from being put on the first plane to Uganda

And again, I must ask:

How about the price of eggs?

How about the price of housing?

How about the price of gas?

What about the price of utilities (which have skyrocketed this summer)?

How about the price of health care?

HMMM?

How is this improving ANYTHING for the American people?

[quote]People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the US

Well, is that true or not?

Don’t send any hot oppas back to South Korea!!!!!!

Quote: sungchi 10 hours ago | prev | next [–]

In practice, Korean staff are essential for the initial setup of Korean companies’ factories. But even though Korea has an FTA with the US, it’s not allocated short-term work visa quotas (unlike Singapore, Chile, or Australia). For various political reasons, Korean firms have instead relied on ESTA short-term visas, and the US had tacitly allowed it. This time, however, a Republican filed a complaint saying these companies weren’t hiring Americans, which left ICE with little choice but to step in.

Trump continuing to win friends and influence people all over the globe:

We don't need any foreign investment! America will dominate the world economy all by itself!

[quote]America will dominate the world economy all by itself!

In a year. Or two.

Yeah, that's the ticket.