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IcyPeas

(24,173 posts)
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 08:36 AM 19 hrs ago

Anger in Seoul as Trump calls detained South Korea workers 'illegal aliens'

Making friends everywhere.


Foreign Minister Cho Hyun says he is ‘deeply concerned’ over detention of 300 South Koreans, while opposition calls it a ‘grave matter’.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has ordered all-out efforts to respond to the arrests of hundreds of the country’s citizens in an immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor-LG car battery factory in the United States.

Thursday’s arrest of some 475 workers – more than 300 of them South Korean nationals – at the plant near Savannah in the southern US state of Georgia was the largest single-site enforcement operation carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the US Department of Homeland Security.

More:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/6/anger-in-seoul-as-trump-calls-detained-south-korea-workers-illegal-aliens
21 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Anger in Seoul as Trump calls detained South Korea workers 'illegal aliens' (Original Post) IcyPeas 19 hrs ago OP
One question in all of this should be - what are they paying the workers. everyonematters 18 hrs ago #1
So he's managed to piss off both North AND South Korea's leadership in one week. travelingthrulife 18 hrs ago #2
So, the foreign minister is... SickOfTheOnePct 18 hrs ago #3
We don't know whether they have been working illegally. travelingthrulife 18 hrs ago #5
See my post #4 .... and you should know .... RandomNumbers 18 hrs ago #6
Trump is an ass ... but here is some USEFUL information about the raid RandomNumbers 18 hrs ago #4
And there we have it! niyad 18 hrs ago #7
Just read yesterday that musk will soon be the first trillionaire IcyPeas 16 hrs ago #8
Welcome to life under a dictator. Girard442 16 hrs ago #11
Tori Branam, running for a Congressional seat in GA, claims she called ICE on the plant haele 16 hrs ago #9
This all seems very fishy n/t leftstreet 16 hrs ago #12
CLOSE THE FUCKING PLANT orangecrush 16 hrs ago #10
why? niyad 12 hrs ago #17
Because it's not safe for other countries to run businesses here anymore. orangecrush 11 hrs ago #19
Understood, and thank you for explaining. niyad 11 hrs ago #20
Most welcome. orangecrush 11 hrs ago #21
the devil went down to georgia Tetrachloride 16 hrs ago #13
This could prove interesting. Trump is a bull in a China shop. Martin68 15 hrs ago #14
Forget for a minute about the legal/illegal status of South Korean workers.... 70sEraVet 15 hrs ago #15
Excellent point ... RandomNumbers 12 hrs ago #16
Why does that not even surprise me? niyad 12 hrs ago #18

travelingthrulife

(3,145 posts)
2. So he's managed to piss off both North AND South Korea's leadership in one week.
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 08:58 AM
18 hrs ago

Perhaps this is one of his 5011th 4D chess moves to promote peace in Korea...Nobel for sure!

SickOfTheOnePct

(8,401 posts)
3. So, the foreign minister is...
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 08:59 AM
18 hrs ago

..."deeply concerned"...I'm assuming then that South Korea allows foreign nationals to work illegally in South Korea?

travelingthrulife

(3,145 posts)
5. We don't know whether they have been working illegally.
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 09:14 AM
18 hrs ago

Seems like a lot of these arrests are people who have their work visas and have been checking in like they were told to do. Big headline over hundreds arrested, no comment on those released without charge later.

RandomNumbers

(18,864 posts)
6. See my post #4 .... and you should know ....
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 09:15 AM
18 hrs ago

I am one of the LAST people on this site you will find defending illegal immigration (or, "legal" immigration when it really does undercut American workers ... i.e. much of how H1B is actually applied)

RandomNumbers

(18,864 posts)
4. Trump is an ass ... but here is some USEFUL information about the raid
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 09:13 AM
18 hrs ago

Key points:

* to the extent the allegations are true, many detained WERE here "illegally" but not in the way the rabid wrong-wing would normally think of it - more minor violation stuff
* at least a few, according to their lawyers, were NOT in violation of their visas, and are wrongly detained
* few if any worked directly for Hyundai. If a significant % of the allegations turn out to be true, Hyundai DOES need to overhaul the HR department that is responsible for hiring of contractors and subcontractors, and probably outright fire at least one contracting agency.
* ... see highlighted section below ...

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/us/georgia-hyundai-plant-raid-timeline

Georgia immigration attorney Charles Kuck told CNN two of his clients were detained at the raid after having arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program which allows them to travel for tourism or business for up to 90 days.

One client arrived in the US last week, and the other arrived several weeks ago, he said.

“They were authorized to work in the US under a visa waiver,” Kuck said. “Each was pursuing activities consistent with the visa waiver program.”

The clients, both engineers, came to the US “to advise briefly on the work” and were planning to return to South Korea shortly, according to Kuck.


OH WAIT ... reading further, do we perhaps see the REAL reason behind this raid? (is TSF really on the outs with Muskrat ... still ... or ever? or it was all a smokescreen? or doesn't matter because there are other beneficiaries in the mix?)

In 2022, Hyundai announced an agreement with the state of Georgia to build Hyundai’s “first dedicated fully electrified vehicle and battery manufacturing facilities in the United States” in Bryan County, the company said. The sprawling, 2,900-acre Hyundai Metaplant has two parts: a Hyundai electric vehicle manufacturing site, and an EV battery plant which is a joint venture between Hyundai and LG. The plant was projected to employ up to 8,500 people when complete.

The raid halted construction of the EV battery plant, The Associated Press reported.

IcyPeas

(24,173 posts)
8. Just read yesterday that musk will soon be the first trillionaire
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 10:43 AM
16 hrs ago

Trump is an evil fuck.

haele

(14,545 posts)
9. Tori Branam, running for a Congressional seat in GA, claims she called ICE on the plant
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 11:07 AM
16 hrs ago

She claims on her Facebook she did it for "Humanitarian Reasons", because a friend knows "a Union Guy" who works at the main factory who told that friend that Mexicans and Koreans and their families were being trafficked and living in slavery conditions at the new plant being built.
Yes, she's a good "Christian" blond lady who apparently is now putting up pics of her with an AR-15 to deal with all the haters upset she was trying to save all those "poor immigrants desperate to come to the US illegally looking for a better life..."

Especially engineers and lower level managers from South Korea?


orangecrush

(26,483 posts)
19. Because it's not safe for other countries to run businesses here anymore.
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 03:47 PM
11 hrs ago

Let Wall Street get the message.

Tetrachloride

(8,922 posts)
13. the devil went down to georgia
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 11:37 AM
16 hrs ago

if they knew ice was coming, where was the mint julep?

no nascar ?

how about a gun raffle?

kimchi makes fewer friends than a bbq

70sEraVet

(4,841 posts)
15. Forget for a minute about the legal/illegal status of South Korean workers....
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 11:52 AM
15 hrs ago

In Putin's war against Ukraine, he has become dependent on North Korean soldiers to fill the battlefields. To get those soldiers, he must give the North Korean leader something HE wants -- like a diplomatic disaster that erodes the alliance between South Korea and the US.
Putin gives orders to trump.
ICE is trump's personal army.

RandomNumbers

(18,864 posts)
16. Excellent point ...
Sat Sep 6, 2025, 03:17 PM
12 hrs ago

between that and it being an EV battery plant ... OF COURSE it was raided. (whether or not there wer rampant immigration violations ... I'm going with NOT.)

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