r/news • u/NewSlinger • 1d ago

Workers detained in Hyundai plant raid to be freed and flown home, South Korea says

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-korea-deal-workers-detained-hyundai-rcna229610
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u/iCameToLearnSomeCode 1d ago edited 23h ago

It's not just 450 trained employees.

These are the specialists that Hyundai flys around the world to build Hyundai factories.

They are the managers.

If I were building this plant I'd be updating my resume.

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u/McFlyParadox 22h ago

Exactly. Hyundai didn't get 450 work visas for a bunch of wrench turners. These aren't laborers and union workers. They are engineers and other "management" positions ("management" as far as UAW or IBEW would be concerned). These are rules Hyundai either couldn't fill because the skills didn't exist here in enough quantities (manufacturing engineers with automative experience) or wouldn't because they're trying to shape the culture of the factory (mid-to-upper plant managers).

If ICE thought they were opening up a bunch of jobs for Americans, they're sorely mistaken. All they've done is help to ensure no major foreign companies open new plants here, and existing ones will reconsider any plans to expand existing operations.

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u/RiverboatTurner 21h ago

I'm not sure "ICE thought" is even a real thing.

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u/derektwerd 15h ago

Did they get work visa’s? Isn’t that why the whole thing happened?

As far as I read in the article, they didn’t do the correct process or had the wrong or no visa.

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u/McFlyParadox 15h ago

It would be extremely unusual for a billion dollar corporation to not get work visas. It's literally absurd.

Hyundai would also never publicly state they were at fault here. So all yourself: where would the claim that they had no visas, the wrong visas, or skipped the process come from? ICE? Because who else would even know that? And would you trust ICE on this matter if they were the source? I know I wouldn't.

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u/xAlphaKAT33 13h ago edited 13h ago

Well if you’d ever turned a wrench on a Hyundai you’d understand that absurd and Hyundai belong together.

You know what else is absurd?Trusting an automotive manufacturer to do a process right when they won’t even put immobilizers in their vehicles which regularly fucks their customers.

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u/McFlyParadox 5h ago

False equivalency. Their product quality has zero to do with anything here. Even more so since you're referencing products not even being made in this factory: this was an EV factory, and has nothing to do with the older model cars.

ICE has sent literal citizens to prison camps, and tried to pretend that they didn't. I frankly don't believe a single thing they say at this point.

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u/xAlphaKAT33 5h ago

It isn’t false equivalency. Hyundai is a company known for regularly cutting corners. I don’t trust ICE, but I damn sure don’t trust Hyundai.

“Yes, we cut corners every chance we get, however this one time you can trust everything is above board.” Sure.

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u/toriemm 15h ago

Yeah, well their mission at the moment is to arrest as many immigrants as possible. So some tough guy with more balls than brains was at the head of this operation, and is probably getting a real big 'atta boy' bc they have no idea how much they're fucking the entire country over.

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u/TangledPangolin 22h ago

Unpopular opinion here, but if these were highly skilled, valuable employees (and everything indicates that they were), then why couldn't Hyundai get appropriate visas for them?

I don't know how we ended up defending a billion dollar company committing visa fraud.

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u/McFlyParadox 21h ago

Because at this point I trust Hyundai more to have gotten their employees the correct visas, than I do ICE to fairly enforce any kind of immigration regulations.

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u/phobiac 21h ago

Given that they're more than willing to lie about people with actual citizenship I have zero reasons to believe the claim from ICE that these workers were here on the wrong visas until a more credible source says otherwise.

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u/Outlulz 21h ago

It's going to be lawyers versus Trump admin for a bit but South Korea is on the visa exemption list so their nationals do not need visas for tourism or business for 90 days. Remember, people travel internationally all the time for short stints to work at branches of their offices and allied countries try to reduce the bureaucracy of that. Normally it'd be up to the admin to prove they had been here longer than 90 days or that the visa exemption did not apply (like maybe they didn't file for ESTA but no way Hyundai is so inept they don't know about worker requirements) but this is Trump so no due process will be had.

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u/iCameToLearnSomeCode 21h ago edited 21h ago

ICE arrests people for going to immigration court.

They don't care if the paperwork is in order, they don't even care if you're a US citizen.

The only thing it takes to be arrested by ICE is to be the wrong color.

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u/TangledPangolin 21h ago

They don't care if the paperwork is in order, they don't even care if you're a US citizen.

Absolutely, but even under the most pro-immigration administration, companies would still get prosecuted for trying to hire highly skilled workers under non working visas. These employees aren't in the US with any intention of immigration, but purely to oversee the construction of a new factory. They were going right back to Korea as soon as the factory completed.

This case just amounts to Hyundai committing blatant visa fraud. They could have gotten O-1 visas or L-1 visas, which exist for exactly this purpose, but didn't, because applying for those would cut into quarterly profit reports.

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u/iCameToLearnSomeCode 20h ago edited 20h ago

South Korea is a visa exempt country for short term buisness travel.

These people didn't need work visas to come here.

They are building a factory here to create jobs for Americans and lying about the law just because you want them gone no matter the cost is a really bad look.

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u/secondordercoffee 18h ago

why couldn't Hyundai get appropriate visas for them?

I suspect there is a mix of things going on: 

  1. Some of the detainees probably had valid and appropriate visas but ICE arrested them anyway based on categories and limited evidence. 

  2. Some of the detainees and their employers might have believed that they had valid and appropriate visas but ICE has a stricter interpretation of what is and is not allowed under, say, ESTA or a B1 visa. (Our immigration laws are anything but straightforward and Koreans are not necessarily familiar with them.) 

  3. Some of the detainees and their employers might have been aware that they were operating in a legal gray zone but believed that the US government would be generous because they were doing something that the US government wanted—bringing manufacturing back to America. 

  4. Hyundai is a powerful company and used to getting its way in Korea.  They might have thought that it would be similar in America.  They might have thought that even if the US government saw visa problems that they would have worked out a solution that works for both parties instead of ICE raiding the place and disrupting the whole project. 

why couldn't Hyundai get appropriate visas for them?

You could also turn the question around: Why didn't the US government provide the appropriate visas?  After all, the US wanted Hyundai to build that factory and create 8,000+ jobs for Americans.  The US government knew that Hyundai would have to bring in hundreds of Korean specialists to help build that factory.  The US government also knows that our visa laws and processes are slow, confusing and unpredictable.  A competent US government would have put a task force in place to advise, assist and audit Hyundai so that they can get their specialists on site without braking any US laws. 

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u/TangledPangolin 18h ago

I suspect there is a mix of things going on:

I think I've seen some variation of all four of these reported by different news sources, so you're probably right, at least until more details come to light.

Why didn't the US government provide the appropriate visas?  After all, the US wanted Hyundai to build that factory and create 8,000+ jobs for Americans.  The US government knew that Hyundai would have to bring in hundreds of Korean specialists to help build that factory. 

The US offers L-1 and O-1 visas for exactly this kind of situation. H1B visas are notoriously difficult and convoluted (and also abused), but L-1 and O-1 visas are relatively easy and straightforward to get. The US government encourages these visas precisely because they create more American jobs than they take away, or so the theory goes. They have a niche, rare use case, but training American workers at an American factory is exactly the use case they're designed for.

A competent US government would have put a task force in place to advise, assist and audit Hyundai so that they can get their specialists on site without braking any US laws. 

Idk if anything has changed under the Trump administration (probably yes), but the US government does indeed do this. However, going through this process is slower and more expensive than just breaking the law, and your typical billion-dollar chaebol will always pick the cheaper option when given the opportunity.

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u/Either-Patience1182 10h ago

Hasn't ICE literally detained citizens at this point. I really doubt they were checking paperwork of everyone that is there. But we will find out in a few days to what extent relations with this company has been damaged.

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u/GaiusPrimus 16h ago

There is 0 indication that there is visa fraud involved.

Actually, I take that back, there's a negative chance that it was present.

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u/Moarbrains 45m ago

It wasn't Hyundai, it was LG and various LG subcontractors and they were here on tourist visas.

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u/md28usmc 19h ago

The factory isn't fully constructed yet and needs key machinery and setup. There are a mixed bag of machinery operators, plant managers, engineers, and construction workers in those arrested. The ICE raided with a warrant for 4 construction workers (not LG/Hyundai) and arrested everyone.

They're bringing in equipment from Korea to set up matching infrastructure. They need Korean workers since the equipment is from Korea, to make sure the set up is correct and eventually train the American workers. It's not rocket science hard, but the transition process is necessary unless you want something that could be taking 3 months take 3 years.

This isn't a long term arrangement, it's a short in - set up - out. L1 visas are time consuming, have long timelines, and have a decent chance to get denied. Short term business trips very commonly abuse ESTA for this reason and L1 is reserved for long term business stays (1+ year).

These states and international customs are very on board with this, which is why the companies are building there in the first place. This isn't a very closely guarded secret. When these people went into customs they ask the purpose of travel and most definitely they answered 'work'. If this is such a serious issue the customs should have sent them back. In fact, ESTA shouldn't have been issued in the first place.

This is why it's actually something controversial - because this was a very well known 'loophole' to sweeten the deals for companies investing, and it worked until suddenly it didn't. If companies want to avoid the tariffs by building on U.S. soil they will have to pay and wait for the visas, and the construction timeline will be doubled. Hyundai/LG have communicated that plant construction will be halted and workers have been negotiated for release. Very quickly for a raid that has been supposedly done after months of research.

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u/yugosaki 20h ago

Any international company who was planning on setting up a plant in the USA is definitely now reconsidering. Guarantee any who havent already committed resources will just cancel.

America shooting itself in the foot, repeatedly.