Savannah, Georgia
AP
—
Two months after 300 South Korean nationals had been detained and left the US following in an immigration raid at Hyundai’s electrical automobile manufacturing site in Georgia, a few of these workers have returned to America to resume these jobs, their employer stated Thursday.
The September raid shut down work on a battery plant below development at the sprawling site close to Savannah the place Hyundai Motor Group started producing electrical autos final yr.
Most of the 475 workers detained had been South Korean nationals. US immigration officers stated they entered the US with visas that had expired or with visa waivers that prohibited them from working.
The battery plant’s operator, HL-GA Battery Co., stated in an announcement Thursday that development has resumed with a mixture of new and returning workers. The firm thanked the US and South Korean governments, in addition to Georgia officers, “for their collaboration in supporting a smooth and timely return.”
“We remain on track to start production in the first half of next year and continue to actively hire local positions to operate the facility,” the battery firm’s assertion stated.
An HL-GA Battery spokesperson, Mary Beth Kennedy, confirmed to The Associated Press that among the returning workers had been among the many South Korean nationals detained in September. Kennedy stated she didn’t know what number of.
More than 300 South Korean workers had been detained in an immigration raid September 4 at the sprawling site the place the Hyundai Motor Group produces electrical autos close to Savannah. The workers spent per week at a Georgia detention heart earlier than the South Korean authorities negotiated their launch and flew them residence.
The roundup by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which launched video exhibiting among the detained workers shackled in chains, sparked outrage and feelings of betrayal in South Korea, a key US ally that has pledged tons of of billions of {dollars} in American investments.
The Georgia raid focused one of many state’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing websites, the place Hyundai produces electrical autos at a $7.6 billion plant. The 475 individuals detained all labored at the battery plant, which is able to produce batteries to energy Hyundai EVs. It is operated by HL-GA Battery, a three way partnership by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution.
The South Korean nationals detained in Georgia had been largely engineers and different extremely expert workers who got here to the US briefly to set up tools and carry out different specialised work to get the battery plant up and operating.
It is unclear how most of the previously detained workers are coming again. Jongwon Lee, an legal professional in metro Atlanta, stated he has firsthand data of two Korean nationals who plan to return after the US State Department confirmed that their B-1 enterprise customer visas had been nonetheless legitimate.
But Kihwan Kim, president of the Federation of Korean Associations for the Southeast US, stated among the workers snared in the raid are hesitant to return to the US.
“They don’t have to come to the United States to work after that kind of humiliation,” Kim stated. “They can go to other countries.”
South Korea’s authorities demanded enhancements to the US visa system for expert Korean workers. Last month, the South Korean Foreign Ministry introduced that US officers had agreed to permit South Korean workers on short-term visas or a visa waiver program to assist construct industrial websites in America
US President Donald Trump initially defended the immigration raid in Georgia, saying in September that the detained workers “were here illegally, ” When requested about these workers once more throughout an October go to to Seoul, Trump stated: “I was opposed to getting them out.”