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

In this case, give them and the company responsible a court summons?

Instead they detained all the Koreans in the building and appear to have used them as a negotiating chip in an upcoming “deal” with the government of South Korea. This is behavior we expect of a banana republic not an allied nation of laws.

Don’t forget ruling by decree.

That was not meant as an exhaustive list, more like a sample, but yes, ruling by degree is a big one (as is ignoring parliament/congress).

To the people who already lived in NA before we settlers took over, we were the "illegals". The irony of xenophobic fear of immigrants will never cease to amuse me. (signed, a descendant of Zacharie Cloutier)

while all these things are true, they're not great descriptions of a banana republic.

Feel free to add the ones that you think that are, as long as they apply.

- Sham judicial processes used to strongarm officials? Check.

It's not really that ironic. The native Americans fought and lost. If they had their way there would be no USA or settlers. Where is the irony in this?

It seems the lesson is that if foreign people want to come and live here, they better come with an army and be prepared to fight. Another lesson is that if you let them in they will displace you and diminish your autonomy.

Immigrants, by and large, aren't waging war or invading.

Of course the indigenous people fought - their home was being totally taken over, by force. That's not what's happening today.

From Wikipedia:

> the term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resource.

The dependence upon natural resource may be hard to check.

What’s happening today is that megacorps are bringing in people illegally to dump the salaries of the locals and for some reason the left, which should fight for the working rights of the locals, is siding with the revenue of the billionaires.

Give it some time, they're emulating russia in just about every other respect as well.