September 8 (Upi) – President Donald Trump sent a warning to countries in the United States on Sunday to “respect the immigration laws of our nation”.
“Your investments are welcome and we encourage you to legally bring your very clever people … and we will enable you to do so quickly and legally,” said Trump about the social truth. He said that he had expected companies to “hire and train” American workers in overseas “.
However, many Koreans are still dismayed by the actions of one of the long -standing political and strategic allies of their nation. During Thursday in a factory in Georgia, 475 workers who operate the Hyundai Motor Group and the LG Energy Solution were arrested. Most detained workers came from South Korea.
The raid on Thursday was announced by the office for alcohol, tobacco, firearms and explosives and included civil servants from other agencies such as investigations for the home protection authority and the US immigration and customs authority.
It was one of the greatest raids in the immigrant in modern American history, and it was not immediately clear why the ATF was involved in the procedure.
The work in Ellabell, Georgia, about 35 miles west of Savannah, is still under construction. It will make batteries that operate electric vehicles and, by Georgia's republican governor in 2022, were invoiced as “the largest economic development project in the history of our state”.
In conversation with reporters on Sunday, Trump said that the raid had no connection to the economic relationships between the two countries. He said the United States had “a big relationship” with South Korea.
However, Koreans were stunned by the attack. In July, the country agreed to buy $ 100 billion in US energy and invest 350 billion US dollars in the country in order to obtain a lower tariff set.
Newspapers and legislators speak outraged in South Korea and describe the Trump government as “unusual”, “impulsive” and “contradictory”.
“I'm really speechless and angry,” said Choi Jong-Gun, former Vice Foreign Minister, the Washington Post. “We spend a lot of money in the United States and are hit in the face.”
The US authorities had a search order and said that the workers had illegally worked or lived here.
The South Korean President Lee Jae Jae Myungsbüro said on Sunday that prisoners will return home on a chartered flight.
The Republican candidate of the Republican Georgia for the US representative of Tori Branum, who claims that she had returned the authorities about the work, said that South Korean companies were part of a “bait and switch” if they promise to hire Americans, but to bring Koreans to work.
“Her justification of” Protection of American Jobs “sounds hollow when her actions of Georgia sabotage long -term prosperity,” said a South Korean business release, CEO News. It said that Branum used the topic to gain a political advantage in her campaign.
“We are there to strengthen the American industry … and as soon as they are set up, there will be a good infrastructure for increasing American employment,” said Choi. “But we saw the Koreans who were chained and treated with handcuffs as if they were terrorists or a bunch of rackets.”
The types of visas that the detained employees use is unclear. However, the South Korean companies were faced with challenges that navigate in the US visa process. There is a border for H1-B working visa, so they used other short-term visas that the workers left in a “gray zone”, said James Kim, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, Washington Post.
Some workers who come to the United States receive a B-1 visa that enables some work such as participation in conferences or business meetings.
“If you send people for factories that affect semiconductors or electrical batteries, you need people on the floor who know what they are doing. And because this is still relatively a new industry, it is not so easy to find these people,” said Kim.
The use of alternative visas was not a problem in the context of President Joe Biden Administration that did not have the same focus on enforcing immigration as Trump, Kim said. But that has changed.
The Border of the White House, Tom Homan, told CNN's state of the Union on Sunday that the Trump government will continue to concentrate on jobs for immigration attacks.
“We will do more jobs for jobs,” said CNBC, said Homan. “These companies that hire illegal foreigners undercut their competition that pays the US citizens' salaries.”
In a statement on Friday, the US lawyer Margaret Heap said more than 400 agents took part in the attack, which was referred to as “Operation Low Tension”.
“The aim of this operation is to reduce illegal employment and to prevent employers from gaining an unfair advantage by hiring non -authorized employees,” said Heap. “Another goal is to protect non -authorized workers from exploitation.”
Hyundai announced NBC News on Monday that the business trip to the USA is still taking place, with some trips to an internal assessment.
