Over 300 South Koreans to return home after arrests at US Hyundai plant

10 months ago by Lee Duna to c/world

South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in the US state of Georgia are to be released and flown home.

US immigration authorities said on Friday that they had detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided Hyundai’s sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia, where the Korean automaker makes electric vehicles.

The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, said the US labour force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July.

Warl0k3 134 points 10 months ago

I've seen this article a whole bunch now, and I have yet to see anyone day if these SK workers were even here under false visas or something? They say they haven't been charged, but are they just rounding up "legitimate" immigrant labor now, not even holding to their own flimsy pretense?

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throws_lemy 81 points 10 months ago

from another source

Some of the detainees had entered the country unlawfully, while others arrived on temporary visas or through a waiver program that does not allow employment, according to Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations.

Attorney Charles Kuck, who represents two detained workers, told AP his clients arrived under the visa waiver program and were in the country legally for tourism or business. He said one had been in the U.S. for only two weeks and the other for 45 days, both planning to return home soon.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Lindsay Williams told AP that some individuals were detained due to prior criminal records and added, "Once citizens have identified themselves, we have no authority" to detain them. Hyundai stated Friday that it believed none of its direct employees were among those detained and said it was reviewing its practices to ensure legal compliance by contractors and subcontractors.

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Warl0k3 48 points 10 months ago

Thank you! That's... not much better, but at least it hasn't gotten quite as bad as it's going to...?

sigh. This shit is so fucking exhausting. just. fuck.

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throws_lemy 42 points 10 months ago

Using falsely visas is SK's fault, but raiding $7.6 billion plant with excessive force is too much. They could have given a warning and time to clear up the visa paperwork beforehand, but they didn't.

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Quill7513 34 points 10 months ago

cruelty is the point

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MrSpArkle 8 points 9 months ago

It was an EV plant.

The disruptions are by design.

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P1nkman 7 points 10 months ago

Trump is going to take over the manufacturing plant.

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Kazumara 9 points 9 months ago

Hyundai stated Friday that it believed none of its direct employees were among those detained and said it was reviewing its practices to ensure legal compliance by contractors and subcontractors.

Wow such a typical big corpo move. Hundreds of people working for Hyundai, none employed by them. Legal issues can be punted to contractors, while they review themselves real hard (they promise).

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taiyang 5 points 9 months ago

Appreciate the context. Still feels excessive, but at least more warranted than a lot of their other activities. I really hope they just go after corporations, but I doubt they will.

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NOT_RICK 41 points 10 months ago

Seems like it. Pretty sure all they care about is being able to report “we arrested 450 illegals” regardless of the actual truth of the situation.

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adarza 18 points 10 months ago

and by 'illegals' they mean 'brown people' (regardless of origin or nationality or legal status to work here).

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Quill7513 32 points 10 months ago

or even actual brownness. i have a friend from Ukraine that got called "wetback". worth noting, she's a US citizen. so… you know… look. racists aren't exactly known for their critical thinking skills

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PhilipTheBucket 3 points 10 months ago

Yeah. If you look at what the directives have been from above, it's very very obvious in retrospect that ICE would be just wandering around arresting people completely at random, because they will literally get in trouble if they do literally anything else.

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mlg 33 points 9 months ago

I know this isn't a real source but I know someone who works at this plant and he said most were here on 3 month visit visas.

Essentially they'd be paid back in SK for their 3 months of work and would cycle in and out in rotations.

Out of all the insane raids ICE has conducted, this one is actually quite a big find since it's Hyandai essentially bypassing visa requirements for cheap labor.

Most likely ICE isn't sure whether to charge the immigrant workers or fine Hyandai since Hyandai is the one that offered them jobs and told them the process of working under a visit visa.

I think they will likely get deported without any criminal charges or individual fines, but will obviously get blacklisted from any future entrance into the US.

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Woht24 9 points 9 months ago
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mlg 5 points 9 months ago

Samsung must have corporate beef with them because my autocorrect is set to Hyandai and not Hyundai lmao

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PhilipTheBucket 2 points 9 months ago

I am deeply skeptical of your story. This is the kind of thing that's super-easy to prove, and I feel like if they were finding real immigration fraud at this plant, they would be half-likely to actually try to enforce against it since that was exactly what they did the raid for and it would have been detected in 2 seconds once they started checking IDs. And even if not, it would be half-likely that that aspect of the story would leak to the press in some form at some point.

The whole thing where your phone autocorrected a real word to a totally nonexistent word makes me further skeptical of the whole thing. I won't say either is impossible, but they both seem unlikely.

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Ilandar 1 point 9 months ago

It will suggest misspelled words if you keep using them.

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TimewornTraveler 1 point 9 months ago

햔대 ㅋㅋ

하얀 데이

they keep saying "white day" instead of "modern" 현대 lol

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Woht24 1 point 9 months ago
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TankovayaDiviziya 14 points 9 months ago

I have yet to see anyone day if these SK workers were even here under false visas or something?

Umm... Trump regime already removed their hoods off about supposedly removing illegal immigrants. It is pogrom towards any foreigners.

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FosterMolasses 9 points 9 months ago

Yes.

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Tollana1234567 6 points 9 months ago

ice is only mostly going after immigrants that are only in one place, the allegedled undocumented or illegals, are probably not going to be working in such public areas.

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PhilipTheBucket 128 points 10 months ago

For those who were curious, "home" means South Korea, not their homes they made in the US.

Also there's this:

Lee’s government even promised at least $50bn of investments during his recent meeting with Trump, a gesture that resulted only in a “crackdown” against South Korean citizens.

CBS, are you paying attention? Probably not.

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TankovayaDiviziya 24 points 9 months ago

Yeah, honestly, Trumpian fascism will only make China look good in the eyes of many. Recent surveys in Europe already showed more favourable view towards China than US as Trump regime unravels. South Korea and Europe might invest on China instead.

I have already said it months ago that China will use the Trump shenanigans as PR coup. Beijing is already offering itself as the more reliable free trade partner than the US.

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PhilipTheBucket 11 points 9 months ago

I would be a little bit surprised if the people in charge of high-level trade are that simple-minded.

China was already a great reliable trade partner. They have other issues as does any nation, but attractiveness for trade wasn't really one of them, they were already pretty bangin' in that regard, and the US losing its status as a good investment doesn't suddenly mean that Chinese markets will become always a safe investment by default. I feel like these narratives like "trade relations = loyalty and friendship, there can be only one favorite nation-crush" are sort of for public consumption.

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Aceticon 6 points 9 months ago

I would be a little bit surprised if the people in charge of high-level trade are that simple-minded.

Their changing in business patterns shows it's the very opposite of them being simple-minded:

I business terms, the biggest negative that the Trump Administration added to Trading in and with the US and US-based Suppliers and Customers is uncertainty - you never know when they're going to do something that fucks up your business: in other words, Trump made the Risk around doing business in America or with US-based companies and customers far higher.

Risk is one of the biggest considerations in evaluating business plans and the more competent and professional a company's management is the more likely they'll do thorough evaluations of any business prospects, something which always includes risk considerations. In fact an entire Industry exists dedicated to manage such risks: the Finance Industry.

Only shitty shit little companies rely of the "gut feelings" of the business owner to evaluate business opportunities.

So yeah, in business plan models all over the World, anything which directly or indirectly can be influenced by the actions of the American Administration just got a big chunk of Risk added, whilst no such thing was added to such plans involving other countries, hence doing business with America is now less appealing that doing business with other countries, in a very direct way.

My expectation is that for most countries even the Tariffs themselves (which for most aren't all that scary) haven't as much impact in making America less attractive for business than the sheer unpredictability of the US Administration.

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PhilipTheBucket 3 points 9 months ago

See that all makes sense. What the other guy said was what I was pushing back on.

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Tollana1234567 6 points 9 months ago

time to rescind that 50bn.

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BackgrndNoize 0 points 9 months ago
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LoafedBurrito 48 points 10 months ago

This is a way to hurt Teslas competition. Nothing else.

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DarkDecay 50 points 10 months ago

I still wouldn't buy a tesla. Even if it were the last available vehicle to purchase in North America. I'd rather walk everywhere

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FreshParsnip 14 points 10 months ago

I've gotten along all my life without driving. There's disadvantages, of course, but there are also advantages like not having to worry about finding a parking space

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Soulg 24 points 10 months ago

If only we could all live in a place where that's possible

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Cybersteel 2 points 9 months ago

Most of Europe and Asia sans the very rural areas?

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Sunshine 21 points 10 months ago

Yeah I would leave dealing with that bs. Boycott the US!

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Typotyper 19 points 9 months ago

I’m waiting for Hyundai to close the doors while they sort out specialized skilled labour issues.

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TuffNutzes 17 points 9 months ago

Wow, they're not being deported to South Sudan!? Time to give Trump that Nobel Peace prize!

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freeman 14 points 9 months ago

Just like Southpark...

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Horsey 5 points 9 months ago

So instead of employing Americans through moving production to the US, they just imported Koreans lol.

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Coskii 4 points 9 months ago

Oh. I should really read articles from time to time. I have seen this through headlines and always assumed it was about the country of Georgia, not the state in the USA.

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Etterra 2 points 9 months ago

Don't worry, is Americans have the reverse problem. I'm fairness though the State of Georgia affects us all in various ways and the country of Georgia almost doesn't matter (no offense).

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