Seoul, Korea
–
The ice attacks on more than 300 Korean workers in Georgia could affect future South Korea’s investment in the United States, the president said Thursday.
His comments come as South Korea shakes from the attack as it has been one of the biggest attacks by US immigration enforcement agencies in recent years and threatens to create a rift between two close partners that have long cooperated with military and economic issues.
Korean American companies “have to build facilities, install equipment and install factories that require skilled engineers,” Lee Jae Myung said at a press conference at the 100th day inauguration meeting.
He added that the confusion over the current visa situation for Koreans has led local businesses to question “whether they should go at all?”
“This issue could have a significant impact on foreign direct investment in the US,” he said. “We are urging the US to normalize the investment-related visa process by ensuring adequate visa allocation or creating new categories of visas.”
Lee’s comments include a Korean worker detained in Georgia leaving Atlanta on a flight Thursday and preparing to arrive in Seoul on Friday.
They return to a disappointed country on their behalf, with many marching on the bus with images of bound workers as betrayal of bilateral friendships that have been forged for more than 70 years since the end of the Korean War.
On Thursday, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said President Donald Trump temporarily suspends the deportation process to debate the potential future for U.S. workers.
“President Trump temporarily suspends the process to listen to our position on whether it is possible for our citizens, all skilled workers, to continue working in the United States,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
“The South Korea has made it clear that under any circumstances there should be delays in departure and return, and that we need to ensure the prompt and safe movement of our people,” he said.
But it added, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told Secretary of State Marco Rubio, “After telling us that it would be best if our people were to return home first, the US re-enters to resume work, and the US would respect this position and move forward with an immediate repatriation schedule.”
Officials from the US and South Korea also discussed the process of bringing workers home. Trump reportedly instructed immigration authorities to transport workers without handcuffs or other physical restraints, even as they tightened US escort regulations on what we wanted.
Anger and shock
Last Thursday, a South Korean worker was detained during an operation to clean ice at a battery factory under construction at Eravel about 25 miles west of Savannah.
The factory is a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solutions, two giants of the Korean industry that have made large multi-billion dollar investments in the US.
The news has led to widespread frustration and protest, along with images released by workers’ ice, bound in long chains, along with images reeling from the ice. Many fear that detention could have a calm impact on the business’s idea of committing a deal on the US soil.
“It was like a ‘slap in the face’ moment,” Choi Jung Kung, former first deputy foreign minister of South Korea, told CNN.
According to Stephen Schrank, a special agent in the Homeland Security Investigation, 475 people were detained and 475 people illegally entered the United States, while others were overstaying visas. Others were here under the US Visa Waiver Program, which allowed workers to travel for tourism and business for up to 90 days.
But Jo Hee Kee-woon, a law professor at Honggik University in Seoul, said that Korean workers have been working under visa arrangements for a long time, as well as those detained in Georgia, pointing to the ongoing problem of the US having too few business visas.
Some attorneys for the detained workers claim that their clients are legally working on the Georgia site.
Some US lawmakers have recently pushed to address the lack of visas for Korean workers. The bill, called the “Korean Partner Act,” was introduced in the House of Representatives in July, but has not moved since.
Foreign Ministers Cho and Rubio argued that a new visa category could be created for Korean workers during a meeting on Wednesday, according to a read from the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
