South Korea sends plane to US to bring back workers detained in immigration raid
Hundreds of South Korean workers detained by US immigration authorities in Georgia last week could soon be on their way home, but the impact the sweeping detentions have on US-South Korean relations – notably the countries’ deep economic ties – is likely to reverberate well into the future.
A Korean Air charter plane from Seoul landed in Atlanta on Wednesday morning to help repatriate more than 300 South Korean workers currently in custody in Georgia. However, the transport and departure operation originally planned for 2:30 p.m. will not take place on Wednesday, officials with Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport told CNN.
South Korean officials had hoped to retrieve workers as early as Wednesday, but that now appears “unlikely due to circumstances on the US side,” the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement. “We are maintaining consultations with the US to ensure their earliest possible departure.”
News of the detentions – including images released by ICE of workers being lined up and restrained with long chains – has sparked widespread frustration and outcry across the political spectrum in South Korea, a staunch and longstanding US ally that earlier this year pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into the American economy.
“It’s really no way to treat your friends,” Cho Hee-kyoung, a law professor at Seoul’s Hongik University, told CNN, calling the Trump administration’s monthslong investigation and subsequent raid at the factory a “surprise.”
South Korea’s government announced Sunday that an agreement had been reached with US officials to release the Korean workers, but the details were still being finalized. Negotiations have keyed on allowing the South Korean workers to leave the US under “voluntary departure,” the foreign ministry said in an earlier statement Wednesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet with South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun at the White House Wednesday morning, according to Rubio’s public schedule. South Korea’s top diplomat flew to the US Monday amid talks over how the detainees would be released.
The workers were taken into custody last Thursday during a sweeping ICE operation at a battery plant under construction in Ellabell, approximately 25 miles west of Savannah. The plant is a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, two giants of South Korean industry that have made major investments in the US.
Outcry from an ally
South Korea has long been one of the United States’ closest allies and is its sixth-largest trading partner. Many fear the detentions of hundreds of workers from the country could have a chilling effect on any business thinking of striking a deal on US soil.
Since the ICE raid on September 4, Seoul –– which has a deeply ingrained protest culture –– has not seen any large-scale demonstrations against the US. Small protests have been seen, but any outcry has largely played out elsewhere.
Newspaper opinion columns and social feeds have reached similar conclusions: True partnership between the two countries means not putting Koreans sent to the US in chains –– people sent across the ocean to help the US thrive.
The conservative paper Chosun Ilbo reported growing calls from the South Korean business community for the government to “formally sit down at the negotiating table with the US and secure visa quotas for Korean skilled workers, ensuring treatment that matches the scale of our investments there.”
