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South Korean workers detained in Hyundai plant raid to be freed and flown home

(www.nbcnews.com)
103 points MilnerRoute | 4 comments | 07 Sep 25 13:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.124s | source
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ajross ◴[07 Sep 25 14:12 UTC] No.45158300[source]▶
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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joezydeco ◴[07 Sep 25 14:21 UTC] No.45158364[source]▶
The one detail I can't seem to find anywhere was what type of visa these SK nationals used to enter the US, and if they overstayed.

This isn't exactly new territory. A lot of countries are very careful to avoid letting you in on a tourist visa if you give off the appearance of entering to work.

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fsckboy ◴[07 Sep 25 14:40 UTC] No.45158562[source]▶
some had no visas, some had tourist visas, some had expired visas
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firesteelrain ◴[07 Sep 25 14:53 UTC] No.45158703[source]▶
Well this extra context makes what ICE did totally understandable. I would expect any country to do the same.
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VBprogrammer ◴[07 Sep 25 15:20 UTC] No.45158966[source]▶
The crackdown is certainly being done for the wrong reasons but it does seem strange to me just how much of the US is built around the idea of a second class of citizens who don't have documentation. It seems like a significant portion of farmworkers, construction, hospitality and childcare are routinely done by people who aren't legally in the country.

I'm sure there is more of this than in Europe than I'm aware of (food delivery is one example we're recently had a lot of focus on in the UK) but it's certainly not at the point that it's routine and expected.

How does this work? Are these people somehow paying taxes regardless of their immigration status?

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1. firesteelrain ◴[07 Sep 25 15:37 UTC] No.45159121{3}[source]▶
Your questions are valid however diverges from the main point. The South Korean citizens in question were breaking the law. Whether we agree on ICE’s approach and how that reflects on optics is more of a political question for this administration. Clearly, the South Korean citizens were not following established US Visa Law and Policy.
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2. ajross ◴[07 Sep 25 19:57 UTC] No.45161600[source]▶
That is simply not true. Automatic/assumed visa waivers has been the way international professionals do temporary work in the US for many decades. Yes, the state department and DHS after it have always had the ability to revoke this waiver when abused. But there is simply no abuse alleged here. They showed up to build a factory, made no attempt to hide that fact, and that's exactly what they were "caught" doing.

This "Yooz Brok Duh Lah" absolutism is a transparently political excuse for what is very obviously a norm-breaking and unjust enforcement of a law that was working very well.

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3. VBprogrammer ◴[07 Sep 25 20:35 UTC] No.45161887[source]▶
As a reasonably impartial observer, I think the truth here is somewhere in the middle. Like almost any large American factory, there are going to be some handful of people who are illegal immigrants through some means or other (if I understand correctly they had a warrant for 4 Latina people). Sweeping up anyone there who didn't have an iron clad visa, I imagine that was just a political play.
4. firesteelrain ◴[07 Sep 25 23:24 UTC] No.45163136[source]▶
I think the premise is off. DHS said some detainees were on the Visa Waiver Program, which only permits business visits and forbids employment. Others were on B-1, which covers meetings or limited training but not factory construction. DHS also mentioned expired or improper visas. We do not have a full manifest, so some roles may have been lawful, but the evidence presented so far shows that at least some of those detained were not following the rules of their visa.