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More than 300 South Korean workers at an electric vehicle battery factory in Georgia are headed home to South Korea today, a week after being swept up in a massive raid by federal agents. They were among nearly 500 workers detained and accused of working illegally. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul that the incident shocked South Koreans and could have damaged one of the U.S.' most important economic relationships.
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ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, released a video of their raid last week on the battery factory in Bryan County, Georgia, run by South Korean firms Hyundai and LG.
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KUHN: The most jarring images were of Korean workers being handcuffed and chained at the waist and ankles. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung told a press conference that if such problems can't be resolved, it could impact South Korean investment in the U.S.
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PRESIDENT LEE JAE MYUNG: (Speaking Korean).
KUHN: "Korean companies will inevitably have to consider," he said, "whether it's worth establishing local factories in the U.S. if it means facing all sorts of disadvantages or difficulties in future." South Korea has recently emerged as one of the biggest foreign investors in the U.S. Ahead of a summit with President Trump last month, President Lee pledged to invest $350 billion in exchange for lower tariffs on South Korean exports. At that summit, Trump praised South Korea's role in helping to rebuild American manufacturing, but he later defended the raid on the Hyundai plant.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: They were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing its job.
KUHN: President Lee says the U.S. wanted to transport the workers to the Atlanta airport in handcuffs, but South Korean officials flatly refused, and the U.S. side eventually backed down. In South Korea's parliament this week, lawmaker Yoon Hu-duk deplored the raid on the factory.
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YOON HU-DUK: (Through interpreter) In negotiations, the U.S. has encouraged us to invest, and then they stabbed us in the back, to be frank.
KUHN: Hur Jung is an economist at Sogang University in Seoul. He says the Hyundai factory in Georgia was still testing its production lines.
HUR JUNG: (Through interpreter) To make this stage progress efficiently, Korean workers and technicians familiar with the system do test runs and get the line rolling. The factory will eventually hire and transition to a local workforce.
KUHN: Hur explains that the U.S. does not have visa quotas for skilled South Korean workers, so the Hyundai technicians came to the U.S. on short-term visas and got caught in ICE's crackdown. Jang Sang-sik is head of the International Trade Research Institute at the Korea International Trade Association, a private trade lobby group. He sees the raid as a quirk.
JANG SANG-SIK: (Through interpreter) We see this as an unusual clash between U.S. state and federal governments, which are hungry for foreign investment, and the immigration agencies and American public, who view illegal employment or immigration very negatively.
KUHN: Jang adds that South Korea is tamping down its anger at the raid because it needs a lot from the U.S., not just lower tariffs but also help countering threats from North Korea and China. He adds that if the issues raised by the factory raid are properly resolved, it could even boost South Korean investments in the U.S.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Seoul.
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