South Korea says deal reached with US for release of workers in Georgia plant
Seoul, South Korea – More than 300 South Korean workers detained following a huge immigration raid in a Hyundai factory in Georgia will be released and brought home, the South Korean government announced on Sunday.
The head of presidential staff, Kang Hoon-Sik, said that South Korea and the United States had finalized negotiations on the liberation of workers. He said South Korea planned to send an airplane to a charter to bring workers home as soon as the remaining administrative steps are over.
US immigration authorities said on Friday that they had owned 475 people, most of the South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents have descended from the Tripacer-Georgia sprawling manufacturer of Hyundai where the Korean car manufacturer Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, Cho Hyun, said later that more than 300 South Koreans were among the prisoners.
The operation was the last long line of raids in the workplace carried out as part of the Trump administration expulsion program. But this on Thursday is particularly distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site that state officials have long called the largest economic development project in Georgia.
The video published by US Immigration and Customs Smart on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles heading to the site, then federal agents ordering workers to align themselves outside. Some detainees were ordered to put their hands against a bus while they were fried and then chained around their hands, ankles and the waist.
The agents have concentrated their operation on a factory which is still under construction during which Hyundai joined forces with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that electrify electric vehicles.
Most detainees were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida State Line. None has been accused of crimes at the moment, Steven Schrank, the main agent of the Georgia for Investigations on Internal Security, said on Friday at a press conference, adding that the investigation was underway.
The South Korean government, a close American ally, expressed “the concern and regret” of the raid targeting its citizens and sent diplomats to the site.
