Isn't "freed and flown home" the same thing as "deported"? These were routine professionals doing a job they took in good faith under rules and norms that have held for a century or more.
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> ...
>South Korea will “push forward measures to review and improve the residency status and visa system for personnel travelling to the United States.”
The implication seems to be that the workers didn't have authorization to work there.
No one ever does, by that standard. In the US, if you're a professional coming in to do some short-term thing, there's no visa process. You just fly in and get the stamp in your passport, which is technically treated as a "waiver of visa". Then you do your job and go home.
Like, have you every flown somewhere to attend a conference and a meeting? Same thing. Where's the "authorization"?
Something tells me that working at a factory, even for "training" purposes is very different than attending a conference. Wikipedia confirms this:
>There are restrictions on the type of employment-related activities allowed. Meetings and conferences in relation to the travelers' profession, line of business or employer in their home country are generally acceptable, but most forms of "gainful employment" are not. There are however poorly-classifiable exceptions such as persons performing professional services in the United States for a non-U.S. employer, and persons installing, servicing and repairing commercial or industrial equipment or machinery pursuant to a contract of sale.[26] Performers (such as actors and musicians) who plan on performing live or taping scenes for productions in their country of origin, as well as athletes participating in an athletic event, are likewise not allowed to use the VWP for their respective engagements and are instead required to have an O or P visa prior to arrival. Foreign media representatives and journalists on assignment are required to have a nonimmigrant media (I) visa.[27]
I just can't understand how anyone thinks that a "Surprise! You're in jail now!" change of enforcement norms like this is a good thing.
I flew to an expo where our company had a booth and the US border patrol took me aside and started asking if I'd be selling things there or working at the booth in some other form. I told them that I am a tech going to see other companies' stuff. They then discussed something between themselves for 10 minutes and let me pass. This was 20 years ago, so them being picky is certainly not a new thing.
There is a process, it's usually tedious but it exists. I did it for Singapore, the US and Israel. They mostly took multiple months but I never wanted to take any chances. For the US it was a "B-1 in lieu of H-1B" visa for example.
Attending a conference is something different than what these workers did. There are rules around what a "business trip" is and what is not and what "work" is.
I can't tell whether you actually think the factory was under construction and therefore the exemption you mentioned would apply, or are trying to mislead people with some sneaky wording (ie. that it was under construction at some point). In any case according to wikipedia[1] it was constructed between 2022-2024, and "full production" (of cars, presumably) began in October 2024, almost a year ago. By all accounts it wasn't "under construction".
That said, I'm sure that something as complicated as a car factory would be continually upgraded and repaired, and maybe some of that would fall under "installing, servicing and repairing commercial or industrial equipment or machinery pursuant to a contract of sale", but at the same time that shouldn't be used as an excuse for multinationals to import arbitrary amount of foreign workers to work there, bypassing the normal visa process. Moreover it's questionable whether that "installing..." excuse would even hold. The OP article mentioned that over 400 workers, mostly south korean nationals were arrested in the raids, but another source[2] suggests the factory's employment is around 400 people. If it was really installing equipment, I'd expect it to be 5-10% of the factory's workforce, not 50-100%.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group_Metaplant_...
[2] https://georgia.org/press-release/hyundai-supplier-pha-creat...
Which US resident would not have the right to work wherever they want in the US?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement_under_Unit...
For example, if you live in New Jersey and work in New York you are obligated to file tax returns to both states.
See also the "Jock tax", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_tax, "the jock tax is the colloquially named income tax levied against visitors to a city or state who earn money in that jurisdiction".
Building a factory as part of a multi-billion investment.
Is the administration serious about re-industrialization? If they are, then if they find visa discrepancies of foreign nationals to that, perhaps they should help the foreigners sort out the discrepancies so they can continue to help the administration achieve its goals.
As someone who has worked in IT for a few decades, I have had to go 'into production' with services while things still needed to be, and were still being, built out.
Factories are large and complex: just because one part has been deployed doesn't mean another part has. One simple possibility: they went 'into production' being able to produce X units per week, but work was being done to be able to expand to X+30% units.
It is the same in the US. I do not see how having to pay taxes prevents anyone from working in a place.
Tax policy and the legal right to work somewhere are two different things. As far as I know, no non-federal jurisdiction in the US can officially say people of xyz characteristics cannot work here. At least not yet.
Also, the jock tax is just income tax.
The only reason it has a name is because it is more difficult to audit and prove tax evasion for most other people that work in various locales, but do not pay income tax they are legally required to, whereas the public nature of the work of entertainers and large incomes makes it easy for a government to prove tax was owed. Which the wikipedia link says:
>Since a state cannot afford to track the many individuals who do business on an itinerant basis, the ones targeted are usually high profile and very wealthy, namely professional athletes. Not only are the working schedules of famous sports players public, so are their salaries. The state can compute and collect the amount with very little investment of time and effort.
ghaff's comment - the one you replied to - included "there's been something of a crackdown on out-of-state work from a tax perspective".
As you correctly point out, that's a different thing than the right to work somewhere.
ghaff wrote:
> most people have a right to work out-of-state
Which means some people do not. I was interested in who that would be.
There may be other things but I'm not an employment lawyer. So people can move but they may not continue to be employed across state lines.
Yes, in many cases, people can commute across state lines to do their actual work. But the companies often still need a legal entity in that person's state to pay them. I'll leave aside edge cases related to custodial matters and so forth.