I don’t think parading out engineers in shackles for a photo op was a good idea.
From another article:
> Images of South Koreans being shackled at the wrists and ankles have caused outrage in South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia that has pledged hundreds of billions in U.S. investment as part of tariff negotiations.
It’s just not smart, not good politics and not good business.
Has anyone disputed the validity of the visas of the workers which were deported? My understanding is that SK citizens cannot get E-4, so people came to the US and worked on a visa that didn’t allow working, and the US deported the people violating visa rules in a not nice way?
Im guessing this is the case or else the SK sources would be calling out that these workers were following visa rules?
Personally I'd be very careful about traveling to the US office for a two week visit these days on an ESTA or similar Visa Waiver.
Historically people have done it and a blind eye has been turned, but with the climate these days you want to be 100% in compliance of your Visa conditions.
I wonder what is so special about South Korea here. Companies from many other countries invest in the US, seemingly without the same problems. Is South Korea disadvantaged by the visa system, or is it coincidence that this happened here?
“Until now, the US was not in the position of requesting investment from us. But now, we hold the power as investors, and the US must respond to our demands.” Korean legislator.
Many Americans don't realize how badly Trump's bullying approach is backfiring internationally.
Are there details on what visas Hyundai needed they couldn't get? L-1A/B for sending experts or management would make sense but I'm not sure there's any real issue getting those, especially not in 2023 when the plant was started.
I once flew to the US for a week on ESTA to attend a few meetings (pre-COVID), but I mostly just did my regular developer work in the US office. By today’s standards, would I have been shackled for that?
I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
When you do construction work, or operate the production line it has to be done by American Labour.
The visas they have only cover setup, repair and education of the production line.
At that LG/Hyundai factory they were using Korean contractors for construction. So there was some breaking of the terms of the visa for at least some of the people.
However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
Now you have many Koreans very upset. And people in my friends company are now scared to go to America even though they are management.
It's not good for anyone, it's just so short sighted!
Maybe. But that doesn’t excuse Korean companies violating immigration laws. Union workers who reported this and invited the raid have reported that this was a tactic taken to avoid paying local workers.
The Koreans are so generous! I don't think that any other country would be so polite if they were humiliated like this [1] after they made such big investments in your country. I don't get the feeling that many in the US understand that you are the one at disadvantage when you disrespect your investors. Is it because the US has never faced a diplomatic backlash before? At the minimum, the aggrieved party would hold the rest of the investments hostage and force you into making major concessions.
Anyway, the way ICE treats immigrants is going to cost the US dearly, both in monetary and in reputational terms. The US may not care much about the dignity of the foreigners, but their parent countries do. The charade about 'illegal immigrants' won't work anymore, because clearly that's not what's happening. It's like the foreigners are targeted to prove a political point to the domestic audience. ICE is acting like a rogue force and is really asking to be outlawed and sanctioned internationally. I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
[1] The news I got from a US source (don't remember which one) was that all of them except one were on valid temporary work visas to set up the plant and train the new US staff who would take over later. That one exception was also on a valid visa, but 'productive job' was not allowed. But he was there for training, so no violations there either.
No violations then what's going on here? Are they sticking to the training missions or actually just doing the work and brushing aside the trainees to maintain leverage? That cannot be tolerated IMO.
A sad thing about these kinds of economic backfires through incompetent, ideological showboating is that Trump could order them in such a way that they utterly ruin the domestic economy, cause massive job losses and miseries for his blue collar base, and these people would still continue to support him while swallowing much of his blame game about the cause of the problems being something else even after years of suffering. People tend towards enormous ideological stickiness when admitting mistaken loyalty means feeling stupid for having condoned its excesses.
I can't count the number of third world countries where local politicians, in power for decades sometimes, depend on exactly the above rules. They abuse their systems in the same ways, say similar lies to their supporters, and keep winning enough votes to stay in power for years or even decades.
The same has been the case of certain democrat and republican party machines in major US cities that went utterly to shit across many election cycles in which the same ideological bases kept winning. It's just a shame that it has to happen at a national level now with similar results brewing.
Anti-american party doing casual "america bad" speeches huh.
Btw, its their fault for not filing proper VISAs. I don't get why there is all the nation-wide fiasco about LG Energy Solution incorrectly filing VISAs and asking government for help for their screw ups.
*Note for anyone on Hackernews: hani is well-known as left-wing news outlet in Korea. Think about CNN, and take with grain of salt.
23 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 40.3 ms ] threadFrom another article:
> Images of South Koreans being shackled at the wrists and ankles have caused outrage in South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia that has pledged hundreds of billions in U.S. investment as part of tariff negotiations.
It’s just not smart, not good politics and not good business.
Im guessing this is the case or else the SK sources would be calling out that these workers were following visa rules?
Historically people have done it and a blind eye has been turned, but with the climate these days you want to be 100% in compliance of your Visa conditions.
Many Americans don't realize how badly Trump's bullying approach is backfiring internationally.
In a war of attrition with China, guess which ally we’ll have to depend on to make our shit?
(Hint [1].)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_shipbuil...
https://www.immigration.go.kr/immigration_eng/1852/subview.d...
Doesn't look like it. Several restrictions on how many (max 5) dependent upon the construction budget.
If Korea selectively needs to bring over skilled workers, there are options. But hundreds?
When you do construction work, or operate the production line it has to be done by American Labour.
The visas they have only cover setup, repair and education of the production line.
At that LG/Hyundai factory they were using Korean contractors for construction. So there was some breaking of the terms of the visa for at least some of the people.
However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
Now you have many Koreans very upset. And people in my friends company are now scared to go to America even though they are management.
It's not good for anyone, it's just so short sighted!
Anyway, the way ICE treats immigrants is going to cost the US dearly, both in monetary and in reputational terms. The US may not care much about the dignity of the foreigners, but their parent countries do. The charade about 'illegal immigrants' won't work anymore, because clearly that's not what's happening. It's like the foreigners are targeted to prove a political point to the domestic audience. ICE is acting like a rogue force and is really asking to be outlawed and sanctioned internationally. I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
[1] The news I got from a US source (don't remember which one) was that all of them except one were on valid temporary work visas to set up the plant and train the new US staff who would take over later. That one exception was also on a valid visa, but 'productive job' was not allowed. But he was there for training, so no violations there either.
I can't count the number of third world countries where local politicians, in power for decades sometimes, depend on exactly the above rules. They abuse their systems in the same ways, say similar lies to their supporters, and keep winning enough votes to stay in power for years or even decades.
The same has been the case of certain democrat and republican party machines in major US cities that went utterly to shit across many election cycles in which the same ideological bases kept winning. It's just a shame that it has to happen at a national level now with similar results brewing.
*Note for anyone on Hackernews: hani is well-known as left-wing news outlet in Korea. Think about CNN, and take with grain of salt.