South Koreans arrested in U.S. immigration raid being despatched house

SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. immigration authorities are getting ready to ship greater than 300 South Korean employees house on a chartered flight from Atlanta, every week after detaining them for allegedly working illegally, whereas setting up a South Korean-invested electrical car battery plant in Bryan County, Ga..

The sight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers handcuffing and chaining the wrists, waists and ankles of expert technicians shocked South Koreans.

It additionally threatened to grow to be an impediment to South Korea’s contribution to President Trump’s plans to revive American manufacturing.

“This could significantly impact future direct investment in the US,” South Korean President Lee Jae-Myung warned at a press convention, simply over two weeks after a summit assembly with President Trump, wherein the 2 pledged to step up financial cooperation.

Lawmaker Yoon Hu-duk put it extra bluntly in a parliamentary listening to, saying: “The U.S. has encouraged investments in negotiations. And then it stabbed us in the back, to be frank.”

The constitution flight’s departure from Atlanta was delayed whereas U.S. and South Korean officers hammered out the phrases of the employees’ launch.

Following a gathering with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Korean International Minister Cho Hyun mentioned that the U.S. had agreed to 2 of Seoul’s key calls for.

One was that the employees be transported from a detention facility to the Atlanta airport with out handcuffs or different bodily restraints. The opposite was that the employees “will face no problems reentering the United States in the future to work,” Cho instructed reporters.

The 2 sides had initially disagreed over whether or not the employees could be allowed to depart voluntarily, or be deported, which might make it tough for them to return to the U.S.

The seemingly businesslike decision of the incident stands in distinction to the stark phrases utilized by U.S. authorities, with the Division of Homeland Safety Investigations calling the raid its greatest enforcement operation ever at a single website.

Protesters maintain an indication that reads, “Condemning U.S. immigration enforcement.” close to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025 as they stage a rally towards the detention of South Korean employees throughout an immigration raid in Georgia.

Ahn Younger-joon/AP

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Ahn Younger-joon/AP

President Trump defended the detention of the employees, saying “I would say that they were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing its job.”

The greater than 300 South Koreans had been amongst some 475 arrested within the raid.

Analysts notice that whereas South Korea was the most important overseas investor within the U.S. in 2023, it is a latest improvement. Different nations, together with Singapore and Australia, which have free commerce agreements with the U.S., have negotiated visa quotas for his or her expert employees. South Korea is enjoying catchup, and doesn’t but have such a visa quota. The 2 governments say they are going to work to resolve this case.

From a broader perspective, the incident stems from “a clash between the U.S. state and federal governments, which are hungry for foreign investments, and the immigration agencies and the American public, who see illegal employment and immigration very negatively” says Jang Sang-sik, head of the Worldwide Commerce Analysis Institute on the Korea Worldwide Commerce Affiliation, a personal commerce foyer group.

“Manufacturing is different from the service industry,” says Hur Jung, a professor at Sogang College, and president of the Korean Affiliation of Commerce and Business Research.

“It needs not only capital but also a massive amount of labor and skilled technicians. I think that, in its push to reinvigorate manufacturing, the U.S. focused too much on capital, while neglecting the labor part.”

The high-tech manufacturing unit is a part of a $7.59 billion funding by South Korea’s Hyundai and LG companies. Hur says that extremely expert South Korean technicians and engineers are wanted to get the plant up and operating, however after that, American employees will function it.

As a result of the U.S. offers South Korea no visa quota for expert employees, South Korean technicians have been touring to the U.S. on short-term visas as a workaround.

South Korea is a pacesetter in high-tech industries wherein the U.S. is competing with China, together with electrical automobiles, batteries and semiconductors.

It additionally hosts the most important U.S. navy base outdoors the continental U.S., and the one U.S. bases on the northeast Asian continental mainland.

However Jang Sang-sik notes that South Korea additionally has loads of causes to tone down its criticism of the U.S. raid on its manufacturing unit.

“South Korea has a lot to ask from the U.S., even besides lowering tariffs,” Jang says. “There’s countering the threats from China and North Korea, and the potential withdrawal of U.S. forces” from South Korea.

Jang says that if the U.S. and South Korea correctly deal with the manufacturing unit raid incident, it might even encourage South Korean firms to broaden financial actions within the U.S.

NPR’s Se Eun Gong contributed to this report in Seoul.