President Donald Trump is trying to smooth things over with South Korea after his administration arrested hundreds of workers at a Hyundai plant in Georgia earlier this month. Just hours after reports indicated that South Korea would open a human rights investigation into the detention of Korean employees, Trump said he doesn’t “want to frighten off” foreign investment into the US — something he has made a priority during his second administration.
On September 4th, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended on the electric vehicle battery plant operated by Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions, detaining nearly 500 workers, including around 300 workers from South Korea. ICE officials claimed the workers overstayed their visas or weren’t permitted to work in the US, according to NBC News.
Workers interviewed by The Korea Times say they were “shackled and handcuffed” and then brought to the ICE detention center in Folkston, Georgia, while their belongings and phones were confiscated. It’s not clear whether the workers were even eligible for deportation, as The New York Times reported on Friday that “in at least one instance, officials admitted a worker was employed legally and forced him to leave the country anyway.”
As noted by the Times, many of the workers entered the US on a B1 visa for business travel, allowing them to stay in the US for less than six months, or on a visa waiver program, permitting them to stay for up to 90 days. Some companies use short-term visas instead of H-1B visas, which allow foreign workers to stay in the US for up to six years, because they’re cheaper, faster to obtain, and less restrictive. “Previous US administrations had largely turned a blind eye to the practice,” according to The Guardian.
Trump has called on foreign companies to invest more money into the US to avoid paying costly tariffs. Hyundai responded with the announcement in March that it would spend $21 billion in the US from 2025 to 2028, with plans to expand car production in the US to 1.2 million vehicles each year and improve its facilities. The removal of hundreds of workers could delay these plans, as Hyundai has already pushed back the opening of its Georgia factory.
The raid sparked outrage from South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who called the move “extremely bewildering” and said companies in the country will be “very hesitant” about pouring more money into the US. South Korea’s security advisor Wi Sung-Lac added that the government would work with the US to carve out clearer guidelines for visa requirements, as well as potentially develop a new category for Korean workers, according to Reuters.
The incident puts the Trump administration on shaky ground with South Korea, which has long remained an ally of the US. In a post on Truth Social, President Trump wrote that he would like to bring foreign workers to the US to “teach and train” employees based in the US. “We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them, and do even better than them at their own ‘game,’ sometime into the not too distant future!”
