SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A lawyer for a number of staff detained at a Hyundai manufacturing facility in Georgia says most of the South Koreans rounded up within the immigration raid are engineers and tools installers introduced in for the extremely specialised work of getting an electrical battery plant on-line.
Atlanta immigration legal professional Charles Kuck, who represents 4 of the detained South Korean nationals, instructed The Related Press on Monday that many have been doing work that’s approved beneath the B-1 enterprise customer visa program. That they had deliberate to be within the U.S. for simply a few weeks and “by no means longer than 75 days,” he stated.
“The overwhelming majority of the people that have been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that have been South Korean have been both there as engineers or have been concerned in after-sales service and set up,” Kuck stated.
The raid Thursday on the battery factory beneath building at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah resulted within the detainment of 475 staff, greater than 300 them South Koreans. Some have been proven being shackled with chains round their palms, ankles and waists in video launched by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This picture from video supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by way of DVIDS reveals manufacturing plant staff ready to have their legs shackled on the Hyundai Motor Group’s electrical automobile plant, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Ellabell, Ga. (Corey Bullard/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by way of AP)
South Korea expects to carry its detainees residence
South Korea’s overseas minister was flying to the U.S. on Monday to safe his residents’ return on a constitution flight to South Korea, the place many individuals have expressed confusion, shock and a way of betrayal.
AP AUDIO: South Koreans really feel betrayed by workforce detentions at Georgia Hyundai plant
Talking with reporters, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem says the Hyundai plant raid sends a transparent sign.
President Donald Trump said the workers “were here illegally,” and that as a substitute, the U.S. wants to rearrange with different nations to have their consultants prepare U.S. residents to do specialised work corresponding to battery and laptop manufacturing.
However immigration lawyer Kuck stated no firm within the U.S. makes the machines which are used within the Georgia battery plant, in order that they needed to come from overseas to put in or restore tools on-site — work that will take about three to 5 years to coach somebody within the U.S. to do, he stated.
“This isn’t one thing new,” Kuck stated. “We’ve been doing this eternally, and we do it — after we ship issues overseas, we ship our people there to handle it.”
The Japanese and Germans did it, too, creating US jobs
Whereas neither authorities has revealed particulars about all the employees’ visas, it’s common for overseas corporations to save lots of money and time by sending staff from overseas to arrange U.S. factories, after which prepare U.S. staff, stated Rosemary Coates, govt director of the Reshoring Institute, a nonprofit that encourages U.S. manufacturing.
“We noticed the identical factor occurring within the ‘80s with Japanese carmakers organising U.S. factories, and within the ‘90s with German carmakers,” she stated.
A B-1 customer for enterprise visa permits overseas staff to remain for as much as six months, getting reimbursed for bills whereas gathering a paycheck again residence. There are limits — for instance, they’ll supervise building tasks however can’t construct something themselves — but when it’s spelled out in a contract, they’ll set up tools, Los Angeles immigration lawyer Angelo Paparelli stated.
Additionally, South Korea is considered one of 41 nations whose residents can use the U.S. Digital System for Journey Authorization (ESTA), which offers a visa waiver if they’ll present “a reliable motive’’ for his or her go to, and this principally offers them B-1 visa standing for as much as 90 days, stated immigration legal professional Rita Sostrin in Los Angeles.
Rights advocates name for staff’ launch in Georgia
Advocates referred to as for the detained staff to be launched throughout a information convention Monday at a church in Savannah, about 25 miles east of the location the place Hyundai started producing electrical autos a yr in the past.
They included Sarah Park, president of the Korean American Coalition of Atlanta, who additionally stated most of the detained South Korean staff had particular expertise wanted to get the battery plant operating.
This picture from video supplied by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by way of DVIDS reveals manufacturing plant staff being escorted exterior the Hyundai Motor Group’s electrical automobile plant, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Ellabell, Ga. (Corey Bullard/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by way of AP)
Daniela Rodriguez, govt director of Migrant Fairness Southeast, stated immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela additionally have been detained. She stated the group’s Savannah workplace has been flooded with calls from members of the family of staff who they’ll’t attain and presume are detained.
Even some staff who weren’t detained really feel unsafe about returning to their jobs on the website, she stated.
Employees described seeing armed brokers and military-style autos in the course of the raid, Rodriguez stated, whereas drones and helicopters hovered overhead. She stated one girl who had a piece allow and wasn’t detained instructed her: “We felt like we have been being adopted as animals, like they have been trying to find us.”
Labor chief accuses Hyundai of abusing work guidelines
A Savannah labor union chief stated native unions have complained that Hyundai and its contractors have been improperly utilizing South Korean staff for primary building that falls exterior the visa waiver guidelines.
Christi Hulme, president of the Savannah Regional Central Labor Council, stated unions which are a part of her council imagine Korean staff have been pouring cement, erecting metal, performing carpentry and becoming pipes.
“Mainly our labor was being given to unlawful immigrants,” Hulme stated.
Spokespersons for Hyundai’s Georgia EV manufacturing facility and the adjoining battery plant didn’t instantly reply to an electronic mail message in search of remark.
South Korean politicians roiled
Showing earlier than his departure at a legislative listening to the place many lawmakers lamented the American operation, International Minister Cho Hyun referred to as the raid by South Korea’s shut ally “a really severe matter.”
“If U.S. authorities detain a whole lot of Koreans on this method, nearly like a army operation, how can South Korean corporations investing within the U.S. proceed to take a position correctly sooner or later?” stated Cho Jeongsik, a lawmaker from the liberal governing Democratic Social gathering.
Some lawmakers referred to as for retaliatory investigations of Individuals who allegedly work illegally in South Korea.
Consultants say the raid received’t seemingly immediate any main tit-for-tat measures given how a lot the country depends on the U.S. for security in deterring potential North Korean aggression and different spheres of cooperation, together with enterprise ties.
Many South Koreans are shocked
This was the Homeland Safety company’s largest office raid but because it pursues its mass deportation agenda, and it focused Georgia — an emblem of bilateral cooperation the place many giant South Korean companies function and plan future investments. Solely weeks in the past, South Korea promised a whole lot of billions in U.S. investments to succeed in a tariff deal. Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung held their first summit in Washington on Aug. 25.
“The way in which that Trump is pressuring the Korean authorities and inflicting damages on its individuals could be very tough and unilateral,” stated Kim Taewoo, former head of Seoul’s Korea Institute for Nationwide Unification. “Can this be forgotten simply in South Korea? In a long-term perspective, it received’t be good for U.S. nationwide pursuits as effectively.”
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Brumback reported from Atlanta and Hyung-Jin Kim reported from Seoul, South Korea. Related Press journalists Kim Tong-Hyung in Seoul, Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Paul Wiseman in Washington, D.C., additionally contributed.
