Seoul, South Korea (AP)-the South Korean Foreign Minister left the USA on Monday to complete the steps for the return of several hundred South Korean workers who were imprisoned in a massive immigration attack in Georgia, a spectacle that has caused confusion, shock and a feeling of betrayal in the USA.
The attack on September 4 in a battery factory in the construction of a spacious Hyundai car led to the detention of 475 workers, more than 300 them South Koreans. Some have been shown that they were tied up in video with chains around their hands, ankles and waits, which were published by US immigration and customs authorities.
South Korea announced on Sunday that the United States has agreed to publish it and that it would bring it home on a charter flight as soon as the final administrative steps have been completed.
President Donald Trump said that the workers were “illegal here”, and instead, the USA must work with countries such as South Korea in order to make their experts train US citizens to do work such as battery and computer production.
Kristi Noem, Secretary of the US Homeland Security, said reporters in London, that Trump had sent investors and her employees a “powerful” message.
“His current message he sent into the world was:”
South Korean politicians roared
Foreign Minister Cho Hyun appeared in a legislative hearing before his departure and described the RAID as “very serious matter”, which he had not expected at all how many legislators complained about the American operation.
“If the US authorities capture hundreds of Koreans in this way, almost like a military operation, how can South Korean companies continue to invest in the United States in the future?” said Cho Jeongsik, a legislator of the liberal government democratic party.
Jose Munoz, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company, during the New York International Auto Show Press Press Preview in New York City, USA, April 16, 2025. Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Read more: Noem says that immigration at the Hyundai plant in Georgia does not deter any investments in the United States
Another legislator, Kim Gi-Hyeon from the conservative opposition staff power party, said, the “unacceptable” raid South Korea sent a “difficult blow that will be difficult to heal”.
Some legislators even asked the government to take revenge by examining Americans who are supposed to work illegally in South Korea.
Seoul has expressed regret through the RAID, but experts say that it will probably not take any important measures, since the country's safety dependency from the USA deteriorates from the deterrent in the deterrent of potential North Korean aggression and other cooperation between the two countries.
Many South Koreans are stunned
The Trump administration has carried out a number of raids in the workplace to fulfill their agenda of mass deportation, but this was the largest of the largest Homeland Security Agency to date in a single location, and a symbol of bilateral cooperation, in which many large South Korean companies make and plan future investments.
It is particularly breathtaking that this raid had only come to South Korea for weeks that they incorporated hundreds of billions of dollars in US investments in US investments as part of a collective agreement, and days after Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung held their first summit in Washington in Washington.
“The way Trump puts pressure on the Korean government and causes damages to its people is very rough and one -sided,” said Kim Taewoo, former head of the Korea Institute for National Association of Seoul. “Can this be easily forgotten in South Korea? In a long -term perspective, it won't be good for the national interests of the United States.”
In an editorial Monday, the largest newspaper South Korea, Chosun Ilbo wrote that “fundamental doubts arise: What does the United States mean with” Allianz “and are investment advantages in all administrations guaranteed?”
Paik Wooyeal, professor at the Yonsi University of Seoul, said the US goal of restoring production through foreign investments, collections with the lack of visa and immigration systems that could support such an effort.
South Korean companies that work in the United States will probably suffer a “great confusion”, since they will now be forced to bring workers home to solve visa problems. Such developments would undermine the US interests, but Trump will probably not make concessions shortly, Paik predicted.
South Koreans question the US visa system
Steven Schrank, the senior Georgia agent of the homeland protection investigations, said on Friday that some of the workers held had illegally exceeded the US border, while others had occurred legally, but had expired visas or had entered a visual inflammation that banned them from work.
However, the South Korean officials and experts have frustrated what they call as strict US borders for visa for highly qualified foreign workers to protect their domestic workers and inactivity to SEOUL's requests for the expansion of the working visa for qualified South Korean citizens. As a result, South Korean companies have rely on short -term visitors or the electronic system for travelers to send the employees they need to start production systems or to do other furnishing tasks.
“The incident will inevitably tighten the lack of specialists by approving legal work and generate pressure on increases in labor costs, may disturb the business and increase costs in the most important business projects in the USA in the USA,” said Eugene Investment & Securities in South Korea in a report on Monday.
Daishin Securities predicted in a report that the RAID could delay the company in the targeted battery system, which should begin production with production at the beginning of next year, which may affect Hyundai's EV business in America.
During the legislative hearing on Monday, the Cho Foreign Minister said that the United States “was not sufficient” on the inquiries to expand Visa for its workers “did not answer” and that Seoul plans to use this raid as an opportunity to drive the associated negotiations.
Cho said that some of the people held in Georgia may have to return to the location to complete their work in the factory, and that South Korean civil servants negotiate to ensure that they can re -enter the United States.
“I will clearly point out that a delay in the conclusion of the factory would also lead to significant losses for the United States,” said Cho.
Associated Press Writer Jill Lawless in London contributed.
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