A week after a federal immigration overall on a South Korean battery facility in Georgia under construction, the concerns about the economic consequences between the USA and South Korea are resistant. The detention of more than 300 Korean workers on the Hyundai LG construction site in Ellabell has created uncertainty about the future of the project as well as those in Georgia as well as the exact reasons for the aggressive and unusual RAID for jobs.
One reason that the immigration officers may have caused to take measures that threaten an important trade relationship and a politically and economically sensitive development in one of the poorest parts of the United States: security questions at work that led to three deaths in two years.
The investigation began in March, said DHS officials, a time that coincides with the second of three fatal accidents at the workplace on site. It is conceivable that the presence of employees without papers may have contributed to problems of security culture in the workplace if people would not have any symptoms in the vocational security and health administration due to fear of deportation.
In April 2023, 34-year-old construction worker Victor Javier Cajija Gamboa fell to his death at the HL-GA Battery Company site after separating his security line. In March they died there in a forklift accident. A Bryan County's sheriff described her as “behind the forklift” with “a blood path with a length of about 10 to 15 feet”.
Two months later, the 27 -year -old became all Kowalski through a load that fell from a forklift.
In a report by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, it was found that construction injuries and deaths had largely exceeded industry for a project of the size of the battery system. A history of the Savannah Morning News found that 91 outpatient shots had been made from the construction site over a period of 20 months.
Hyundai and LG were asked whether employees belong to this or other websites that belong to LG or Hyundai without reporting reprisals in the workplace without reprisals.
“All employees that we have hired directly for the HL GA battery companies are legally employed. We will work with our suppliers to apply the same standards,” replied Phil Lienert, a spokesman for LG Energy Solution, a battery suit partner.
“The health and security of everyone at our facilities and construction sites has our highest priority,” he added. “Our direct employees and our subcontractors understand our commitment to security and professional industrial security and health policy. Together with our subcontractors and responsible authorities, we have fully supported thorough investigations to determine the basic cause of the incident and prevent such accidents in the future.”
An ICE spokesman would not confirm, but did not contest the fact that security problems have contributed to the examination. But he expressed skepticism about claims by Tori Branum, a Republican and former US Marine, who ran for the congress in Georgia that her complaint calls triggered the lawsuit.
“I don't know who that is,” said ice spokesman Lindsay Williams. “The summary of the executive I was informed about has its name … it has nothing to do with our investigation.”
The raid by investigating the home protection and other authorities ended with 475 people, 320 Korean citizens were, most of whom had a B-1 visa or entered with a Visa waiver, said Charles Kuck, an immigration lawyer who represented four of the imprisoned workers. With regard to other prisoners, the fear of security problems due to the possibility of deportation is a “plausible” problem, he said.
When ice arrested: “There were many Mexican, Guatemaltec, Chilean, Colombian, Ecuadorian, Venezuelan people,” said Vanessa Contreras, spokeswoman for Migrant Equity Southeast. “And of course many of these people were documented. Many of these people had valid work permits. Many of these people were legal here.
According to the Korea Economic Institute of America, an investment by Korea in the United States, which was funded by the South Korean government, incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act of Korea in the United States triggered more than $ 55 billion for private investments from Korea in the USA. The country's US investments in recent years have fallen into a band that started near Detroit and ended near Savannah, Georgia and reached the America Rust Belt and the Union Busting countries from Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
Over the years, Georgia has had a particularly strong relationship with South Korea, a product of careful economic diplomacy and a wave of Korean immigration. The third most common language in most states is either Chinese, French or German. It is Korean in Georgia.
“Georgia has always worked to maintain a strong relationship with the Republic of Korea and Korean partners such as Hyundai and extend to the foundation of the Georgia trade office in Seoul for 40 years,” said Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp. “We are grateful that you repeat your commitment to all state and federal laws, as we have continued to commit this unfortunate incident not to reverse the decades of mutual partnerships that we have assembled together.”
Since the adoption of Inflation Reduction, Georgia has made more than $ 21 billion in South Korean production investments in 20 projects.
“There are no relationships,” said Trip Tollison, President and CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority. “It is important to note that those who were arrested were not full-time employees, permanent employees and here to install demanding devices and train employees with this equipment. HL-GA battery JV has informed us that they are committed to the Savannah facility and concentrate on the release of the prisoners.” Great season emphasized the temporary nature of the employees because the conditions of their visas did not allow them to extend working trips.
The main work of Hyundai had created more than 2,800 jobs, and the expected number of jobs between Hyundai and 21 suppliers was 15,716 with a capital investment of USD 10 billion, said Tollison.
“That didn't change,” he said. “We have not yet carried out an economic impact study, but will eventually complete one in the near future.”
Georgian political leaders insist that everything will be fine, although Donald Trump's immigration policy is very contradictory of the interests of foreign investors.
South Korea's political leaders insist that everything is wrong, while they largely devote themselves to the security problems of employees and the employment practices of their subcontractors who may have prompted the attack.
On Thursday morning, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said that companies are likely to hesitate to invest in the United States in the future.
“It is not as if it is long -term workers. If you build a factory or install devices in a factory, you need technicians, but the United States have no workforce and you will not spend visas to stay our employees and do the work,” he said.
“If this is not possible, the establishment of a local factory in the USA will either go hand in hand with serious disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies. You will ask yourself whether you should do it at all,” added Lee.
South Korean and US traders agreed to a tariff of 15% for South Korean goods in July – instead of punitive tariffs that had been on the table – in return for an obligation to invest $ 350 billion in new investments in the USA. The South Korean managing directors announced plans to invest an additional $ 150 billion in American companies after a summit in August. Hyundai alone announced three weeks ago to invest an additional $ 26 billion in American production in American production.
The scope of these investments, from artificial intelligence to shipbuilding and nuclear energy, is large. This is also the scope of the interest of South Korea's new president for American investments in order to shed light on the dwindling economy of South Korea.
On Thursday, the managing director of Hyundai, José Muñoz, said the prison sentence and the departure of the employees of their joint venture to South Korea, said the completion of the battery facility.
“This will give us at least two to three months of delay, because now all of these people want to go back,” Muñoz told reporters in Detroit on Thursday. “Then you have to see how you can fill these positions. And for the most part, these people are not in the United States.”
