I don’t think parading out engineers in shackles for a photo op was a good idea.
From another article:
> Images of South Koreans being shackled at the wrists and ankles have caused outrage in South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia that has pledged hundreds of billions in U.S. investment as part of tariff negotiations.
It’s just not smart, not good politics and not good business.
This is just American imperialism brought home, and it's already being targeted at American citizens themselves. Now you're starting to get a taste of how people in many countries feel about the US.
This government has made big spectacle and promises on deportation. Though the government has seemingly denied there are reports that field offices need to make 75 arrests per day and failing to do so will lead to "accountability":
https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/report-ice-directed-t...
This means there is a huge incentive to create spectacle out of arrests. So, that in case the field office lags behind, they can always point to the photo op - See how hard we were working there?
This might not hurt the government politically because supporters can see those hard hats and exclaim - See they were wearing hard hats, how were they not breaking the law?
But at the cost of creating an unnecessary diplomatic crisis. Even if there were visa issues, this puts South Korean government in a bind - they need to answer to their constituents. Being seen as incompetent and unable to save its citizen abroad is a sensitive topic in many countries.
Investments might be impacted as well. It seems to me that many Trump supporters think international politics requires blustering. But much of the work happens behind the scenes.
It may not be smart or good business but it's great politics. It's easy to blame foreigners for any perceived wrong, especially if they're breaking the rules. Your constituents believe that you're setting things right.
It will undoubtedly have negative financial effect on those same constituents, but there's always someone else to arrest and take the blame. It's fantastic politics.
Even if they aren’t breaking the rules, you just make your visa policies complicated enough that you can say they might be breaking rules and your constituents will just eat it all up. Meanwhile South Korea decides getting closer to China might be the better course of action.
I don’t think that’s the issue here? The workers were breaking the laws, unacceptable, but there is little evidence that they are a danger to society or the agents handling them. There could have been much better ways to handle this or maybe, hmm, not televise for the whole world to see. It was done to humiliate. Period.
ICE has bravely rescued us from the menace of people building battery factories. Forget fentanyl, trafficking, or violent crime—our real existential threat was clearly a few Korean engineers with power tools. Obviously, they were biding their time before graduating to cartel kingpins. And thank heavens the plant won’t be finished—who actually wants it and the jobs, infrastructure, etc it would bring.
Sleep well, folks—America is saved, one deported factory worker at a time.
The bit that gets me is another country is kinda handing over its technology to USA, so why get in the way?
When US engineers went to China to offshore US factories there, I doubt China got in the way. Probably watched with heavy interest but definitely not hindered in any way.
It’s the other end of the spectrum from migrants from other countries doing the large scale manual labor for little pay by American standards, but high pay by their own. Ultimately everyone benefits.
It’s not about economics. It’s about racism and nationalism through and through. You can’t look at it with a rationalist lens or it can’t make sense. The issue is the dilution of a perceived whiteness of the American identity being threatened by non-white immigration. It doesn’t matter why the Korean workers were here or how tenuous or nonexistent the immigration violation claims were. It matters they weren’t white.
For proof, which hasn’t been particularly hidden, see the extreme efforts to create a false narrative (including the president confronting a foreign leader with photographs from a completely different country) of white persecution in South Africa and a recalibration of refugee program to prioritize white South Africans. It’s the whole “reverse discrimination” malarkey (as if discrimination is structurally one way) playing out with fabrication and lies since they couldn’t find real facts. A rationalist argument can’t be found, because it’s not rational - it’s just racist nationalism.
This is going to be remembered in history globally as one of the embarrassing low points that beggars the question of American moral standing , which is likewise a fallacious tu quoque argument. What’s going on ignores the fact the founding fathers were enlightenment liberal humanists of the extreme degree, and while creatures of their time, endeavored hard to establish a construct in the constitution and bill of rights a system that will eventually and stably arrive at an ideal liberal humanist society. They recognized with pretty clear sightedness their own imperfections in this regard and recognized society changes slowly, but believed the constitution and bill of rights would make the change inexorable. I for one agree after studying it for some time. This means this aberration we see today, which is reminiscent of Sulla’s attack on the Roman republic, was well planned for an accounted for. They knew clearly and better than we do the natural tendency of man, and specifically corrupt ambitious racist theologists as their time was steeped in, and built a system that mean reverts always towards a liberal humanist outcome.
The question to my mind is will I live to see the damage undone and is my daughter equipped to right the ship in her life time.
>Ultimately everyone benefits.
>It’s not about economics.
What about the local citizen who is clearly neither the migrant nor the capitalist, both of whom conduct wage arbitrage the local doesn't benefit from? How is that not economic and why is that assumed to be racist? Savannah is almost 50% Black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah,_Georgia#Demographics but they can't employ a workforce that even maybe resembles the local demographics?
Why isn't it rational for the local citizens to see a business skirting the law to get American consumer dollars but avoid American wages and calculate that's not just not to their benefit, its to their detriment?
2. Allies are less powerful, the world starts another world war
3. Get sneakily attacked
4. Win the war by entering when everyone is already spent out after fighting for several years.
5. Everyone likes USA because they helped.
6. Profit.
Looks like history is about to make another turn of the same wheel, but this time WW1 is Russia (+China) <-> Ukraine (+EU). Russia will be rebuilt by China and start another round to get back on EU.
It's fascistic nihilism. They want brown people out of the country and money in their own pockets. If their out group suffers, what does it matter? If the economy crashes, or US world standing falls, who cares? What use is American idealism anyway?
It feels like this was more done initially to meet a quota. Lady reports to ICE she thinks illegals working there. ICE does some sorta check and realized there might be an issue with a couple and extrapolated it to all Asians working in the facility. Saw a big juicy chance to roll out the team and detain a ton of people thinking it make Bondi and Trump happy. Now Trump is stuck looking weak to Koreans (and in turn china and India) or weak to his base depending on who he sides with which right now looks to be his base.
Police in the US are way too quick to handcuff people. It should be reserved for violent or aggressive suspects, or at least require formal justification as is required in much of Europe. Police here will take a calm and cooperative person and rob them of their most fundamental human right, merely as a convenience.
I saw a body cam video on Youtube yesterday (which wasn't outrageous, so I doubt it was one of the fake ones.) It might have been edited to seem more out-of-line than it was, but I don't think it matters.
In it, a wife had died in the shower, and the husband and his father had been inside the house while the shower was on, but "had not talked to her."
Naturally, suspicions arose and they wanted to talk more to the husband, but the way the officers continued to rile up the father, who was probably in chock after finding out his son might be a murderer, was just pure unprofessionalism. They could have taken a step back, or avoided being four officers against one father, or any other obvious technique to de-escalate, but nope. Just continue pushing, arguing and believing that "doing our job" never means re-assessing the approach.
such procedures don't appear from thin air - they indicate low trust toward citizens (or at least the worst cases of them) whether in the present, or in the past
I do see there undoubtedly is a lot of crazy policing happening but I also am sure a lot of it is because those types of incidents are what get the views. I know there are countless police interactions where they are kind and chill but that is boring to watch. Not saying the violence should get a pass just that I believe there are many good officers out there that do address issues calmly and are not quick to jump someone.
It was probably good for white nationalists like Trump, his party and their voters though. They also don't seem to be interested in doing what's best for business.
I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
When you do construction work, or operate the production line it has to be done by American Labour.
The visas they have only cover setup, repair and education of the production line.
At that LG/Hyundai factory they were using Korean contractors for construction. So there was some breaking of the terms of the visa for at least some of the people.
However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
Now you have many Koreans very upset. And people in my friends company are now scared to go to America even though they are management.
It's not good for anyone, it's just so short sighted!
> I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
You could just say you know someone at LG ;)
> However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
The point is to reach quotas. Warnings and voluntary exits don't help with those.
> Now you have many Koreans very upset.
FWIW, the reaction among Koreans (i.e. in korea), especially the younger generation, has been quite mixed. Among age 20-39, only a minority expressed being "disappointed with the US' excessive measures". Among the older groups, the majority did react negatively.
The most common reasons among those who did not express disappointment:
- They'd want the very same thing to happen if the roles were reversed: foreign companies in Korea bringing in hundreds of people on questionable visas
- The companies knew exactly what they were doing, that it was illegal and that they were at risk. This had been coming for some time. Cases had been starting to pop up of those trying to do multiple consecutive visa runs (blatant abuse, but often instructed by these same companies) being denied.
- The employees who get sent on these business trips are often privileged and rich, so some take pleasure in seeing them not get away with something for once.
- Korean young MAGAs who love the concept of deportation and the current US gov
It used to be a wink wink agreement between the US and Korea. Yes, Korean companies break rules, but a lot of it tends to be directly related to the terms put in by the government. There’s milestones and deadlines that need to be met to ensure money gets released. But we all know what happens to construction projects here. There were some people definitely working on wrong visas.
Anyone who has worked for a larger than mom and pop company outside the US, who has been sent to the US by their company for some reason knows that the legality of their presence and type of visa needed is top of mind. Triple so when the company is as large as Hyundai. For certain they retain a specialist US immigration law firm.
The Koreans are so generous! I don't think that any other country would be so polite if they were humiliated like this [1] after they made such big investments in your country. I don't get the feeling that many in the US understand that you are the one at disadvantage when you disrespect your investors. Is it because the US has never faced a diplomatic backlash before? At the minimum, the aggrieved party would hold the rest of the investments hostage and force you into making major concessions.
Anyway, the way ICE treats immigrants is going to cost the US dearly, both in monetary and in reputational terms. The US may not care much about the dignity of the foreigners, but their parent countries do. The charade about 'illegal immigrants' won't work anymore, because clearly that's not what's happening. It's like the foreigners are targeted to prove a political point to the domestic audience. ICE is acting like a rogue force and is really asking to be outlawed and sanctioned internationally. I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
[1] The news I got from a US source (don't remember which one) was that all of them except one were on valid temporary work visas to set up the plant and train the new US staff who would take over later. That one exception was also on a valid visa, but 'productive job' was not allowed. But he was there for training, so no violations there either.
> I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
The rest of the world will remain restrained indefinitely. Yes, populist politics requires voicing outrage at this, but otherwise this is more a good thing than a bad thing.
Because salaries in the US in the real sector of the economy are often 5 times higher than even in other developed countries. So there is a huge drain of the best specialists to the US from all over the world. And no country wants to lose its best professionals.
Personally I'd be very careful about traveling to the US office for a two week visit these days on an ESTA or similar Visa Waiver.
Historically people have done it and a blind eye has been turned, but with the climate these days you want to be 100% in compliance of your Visa conditions.
Traditionally the to do work trips into the USA for Australia and other USA allies was the ESTA visa waiver that these Koreans were on.
From reading about what happened here it seems the South Koreans were on that visa waiver for their work trips. A lot of people claiming "it doesn't allow you to work" yet the visa waiver has a long long list of various types of work it does allow and it's pretty broad.
So it seems the ESTA isn't worth anything anymore. You can't go to the USA without a very very heavyweight working VISA. Ok. No more trade shows, conferences or general business trips.
> So it seems the ESTA isn't worth anything anymore. You can't go to the USA without a very very heavyweight working VISA.
There really isn’t much between a B-1 and an H1-B, so there isn’t much of a path forward here. That factory isn’t getting built until the USA re-instates previous exceptions.
Same, and I’m from Canada. Lots of international flights route thru the US. I have to make extra effort to avoid. Been doing that for 10 years. Just not worth the risk.
Isn’t that somewhat simplified by doing immigration for the USA at Canadian airports? In that case, I’d guess they could say no at the airport but you aren’t really at risk of being deported since you are still in Canada, and there are no emigration checks in American airports.
Not simplified much. By the silly rules in the US, during the transfer you must go thru immigration and even get your bags and check them in again.
Yes there’s pre clearance in Canada. This would ease the border a bit. But there’s still a risk that something somewhere will go wrong.
The main reason I stoped routing thru the US 10 years ago wasn’t ICE. I didn’t like the way border agents were rude and disrespectful. I felt like I was being interrogated every time and didn’t feel welcomed there. So I decided to vote with my wallet and simply not fly thru.
Oh, only on the inbound trip, outbound from Canada should check thru. Too bad America and Canada don’t do transfer zones like most non-Chinese airports in Asia and Europe.
Why? There are tons of reports of individuals getting stuck in detention for weeks for extremely minor or even no actual immigration offenses. I’ve traveled extensively across africa including some pretty shady countries and I now feel that I have to put the US in the same bucket: avoid, if not absolutely necessary, due to risks outside of my own control.
I mean, there’s literally hundreds of countries, why would I go somewhere with the risk of being arbitrarily detained, if I can help it at all?
If you've ever traveled abroad and replied to a work email or worked on anything at your hotel there's a chance you violated visa rules in some form. Very easy to find a violation if you want to find one, following the letter and not the spirit of the law.
It was an ESTA, and yes, technically working from the US with an ESTA isn't allowed. I'm not invited to the CES since I've left the first company I worked for in 2020, but I definitely would have cancelled all my plans to do so until this is clarified. If I needed a full visa to get there, I probably wouldn't have.
Also that's not what happened. The ones responsible for the breach, IE Hyundai execs and management who took care of the visa waivers and asked their employees to setup production lines were not arrested, only the people who had little to say about capital allocation were. In a way, Hyundai investors would have been a better target than their workers since they choose the execs who chose to build in the USA.
South Korea is way too close to China to be relied on n a war against China. Only if we have an overwhelming advantage and the war is mostly a defensive one for China, but I seriously doubt that would be the case.
> Korea is way too close to China to be relied on n a war against China
Enemy of thy enemy.
We protect Korea from the Kims. We also buy from them and treat them with dignity. Break those pillars and yes, China controls Asia and the Pacific in a way Yamamoto could have only dreamed of.
> and the war is mostly a defensive one for China
China holding Taiwan is a direct threat to the security of Seoul.
I get that, I just don’t think the front line will be so close to China. Even in the Korean War non-regular Chinese troops were able to take Seoul…twice. The country just isn’t very defensible in a war with China, not defensible enough to have it continue making ships uninterrupted.
Some enemies are more beneficial to left unattended. Realistically, there are almost no scenarios in which it would be advantageous for Korea to enter a war against China.
> We protect Korea from the Kims. We also buy from them and treat them with dignity
Still not worth a war with China.
> Break those pillars and yes, China controls Asia and the Pacific
We could build them. We can invest. It doesn’t have to come from outside. But no matter what, catching up to China’s volume is not possible for many years.
"If we don't continue outsourcing all of our know-how and industry, we won't be able to solve the problems caused by outsourcing all of our know-how and industry!"
Has anyone disputed the validity of the visas of the workers which were deported? My understanding is that SK citizens cannot get E-4, so people came to the US and worked on a visa that didn’t allow working, and the US deported the people violating visa rules in a not nice way?
Im guessing this is the case or else the SK sources would be calling out that these workers were following visa rules?
A valid visa possibly but not one valid for the type of work they are doing, which would have required an H1B. The article doesn’t seem to address this head on.
I can’t really evaluate or trust that part - it’s a redacted quote from some unspecified doc from an unspecified source. My point is that building factories generally requires a different visa because ESTA and also B1 have many restrictions. The fact that it says B1/B2 in there undermines its credibility - one is a travel visa not a work one, and it doesn’t make sense to mention them interchangeably.
"In practice, the two visa categories are usually combined and issued as a "B-1/B-2 visa" valid for a temporary visit for either business or pleasure, or a combination of the two."
While the B-1 visa generally restricts employment and formal education, there are some exceptions under specific circumstances. These exceptions aren’t separate visa categories but annotations considered by the U.S. consular officers during the visitor visa application process.
Here’s a closer look at these special B-1 subcategories:
B-1 after-sales service visa: Companies selling equipment to the U.S. can leverage this visa to send assemblers for on-site service orders. Think of it as temporary technical support. These assemblers can perform tasks like installation, maintenance, and training, but the assembly work must be done by U.S. personnel.
B-1 in place of H-1B visa (temporary project visa): Some professionals might be eligible for a B-1 visa for temporary projects in specific scenarios. This option can be viable when an H-1B visa, typically used for specialty occupations, might be challenging to obtain.
B-1 instead of H-3 visa (short-term training): Under certain conditions, the B-1 category can be used for brief in-house training sessions or further employee education. It allows for skills development without needing a dedicated H-3 visa designed for trainee positions.
IMPORTANT! These B1 business visa exceptions have strict requirements. Working with an immigration service provider or lawyer is highly recommended to determine if a particular B-1 visa category fits your situation.
From the friendly link, ICE itself says he did not violate his visa conditions in any way:
From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”
The Guardian offers no evidence for this. Just a vague claim of some doc leaked from someone. But even that text doesn’t seem credible. Why would it say “not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements”? Which is it? B1 is a business visa. B2 is for tourism. It doesn’t make sense to claim they aren’t violating the requirements of these two very different visas.
I don't trust the government and if they are in fact violating the law than I hope that there is recourse, I would bet however that there is a clause somewhere that says that they can rescind status if they like.
However The Guardian's evidence is a couple quotes from a leaked document, not a scan of the leaked document.
So probably not doing construction work as some of the claims and only arrived in June so not close to the start term of the B1/B2 6 mo allowed duration.
"Purpose of your visit" in the context of a multi-entry visa with a ten year validity period, is a rather nebulous term.
I don't really remember, it's been 10y since I last had to fill out a DS-160, but I don't think so.
You probably will get asked about the purpose of your _first visit_ in the interview though.
Even setting that all aside, B1/B2 are _obviously_ very often combined together.
"I'm going for a conference, and then I'm going to do some sightseeing on the weekend" is something that, under some very strict and specific reading of the law, would require a B1/B2 visa for example.
If you want to be extremely strict in reading the law, you can't really attend a conference on a B1, and sightseeing would require a B2.
> My understanding is that SK citizens cannot get E-4
Nobody can, because it doesn’t exist. The E-4 visa mentioned in the article is a proposed new classification that a bill pending in Congress would, if enacted, create just for Korean workers, similar to the existing E-3 classification for Australians.
Yes, by Congress, even if and when required by a treaty or other international agreement. Look up §101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, codified at 8 USC §1101(a)(15), for all the nonimmigrant classifications:
8 USC §1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) has H-1B, 8 USC §1101(a)(15)(E)(iii) has E-3, and so on.
A treaty is not self-executing under US law unless it is both ratified by 2/3 of the Senate pursuant to the Treaty Clause of the Constitution and also contains language expressing that it will be self-executing upon ratification, in which case it has the same domestic legal effect as an Act of Congress. See Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn_v._Texas for a recent SCOTUS precedent about this.
Many agreements which are treated internationally as treaties, including most US free trade agreements, are not considered as such for purposes of US constitutional law; many others are not self-executing even when they are ratified through the Treaty Clause procedure. These only have effect in US domestic law when implemented by implementing legislation passed by Congress, or to whatever extent the executive branch handles implementation through regulations, policies, or similar which it already has the authority to promulgate without new legislation.
I've not seen any good summary of whether any/some/all of those arrested had actually committed any sort of immigration violation. I would love to see some actual truth about it.
It's also very noteworthy that these people are still being imprisoned in the US on Donald Trump's orders - Trump having personally prevented the repatriation of the Koreans to Korea today. There is absolutely no reason to believe that we have the full story, or that the Korean government, or the Korean's individual friends/families/represetnatives feel free to speak freely as America seemingly holds their citizens hostage. To say that lack of further public disputes is proof that there is not more to dispute seems false to me.
That is a bit hyperbolic to say they are being held hostage, the government has accused them of a crime and is holding them while they are given due process.
We can debate the validity of the government's claim, I have seen an article which says that the workers were on B1/B2 Visa which has strict requirements for what is allowed from what I have read but also says the government in it's internal report also stated no crime was committed.
Which countries just repatriate those they accuse of crimes rather than prosecute?
No - there is no due process or criminal charges at play here. The government detained them per immigration law in order to deport them, for the sake of argument lawfully. The government arranged to repatriate them. Then in order to attempt to negotiate a business deal Donald Trump ordered them not repatriated, and instead to be continued to be held in US custody without trial, without criminal charges, and without even the suggestion that the purpose was to charge them criminally. Rather the explicit purpose was to attempt to negotiate a business deal where they would remain working in the US.
Holding people in custody in order to negotiate a business deal is the definition of hostage taking.
> South Korean officials originally hoped the Korean Air plane would leave Atlanta as early as Wednesday afternoon local time, shortly after it arrived from Seoul. But the foreign ministry said its departure was likely to be delayed “due to circumstances on the U.S. side,” and a spokesperson for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport later said that the charter flight had been canceled.
> At a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun learned that Trump had ordered the suspension of the repatriation process in order to discuss with South Korea whether its detained nationals — all of them skilled workers who were helping to set up an electric vehicle battery plant — should remain in the U.S. to continue their work rather than being sent home.
I think there feeling is, you say you want us to build our products in the U.S. but then our essential workers aren't allowed in so it's an impossible demand.
IIRC, US embassies in eligible countries are usually very picky about issuing B-1 visas. They assume ESTA works in most cases, so you need a strong reason to apply for B-1.
When I worked at Salesforce Japan, I went to conferences in the US. I always honestly said it was for business when entering the country. I spent nearly the whole time at the office, and answered emails from customers and clients.
No one asked about visas. I didn't think that was an issue since I really was there for a week for a business conference, but maybe it was? After all, technically it was a "Tourist" visa.
In the end though, SFDC keeps almost all of its technical talent in the US. If the government really got annoying, they probably would have stuck to the local talent and forgotten about the rest of us.
The ESTA visa waiver which is the easiest way into the USA for allied nations specifically allows meetings, consultation, training and states that installation of advanced equipment is allowed under that visa.
The question being asked by the parent is if they stepped outside the boundaries of that visa waiver.
There are more options than "tourist" and "working" visa. Your message is significantly oversimplifying it. Until we know what they were actually doing at work (really, not claimed by ice), we won't know how valid their stay was.
It was a clear violation, the rest of this is just posturing for politics. Most of the people had come on the wrong visa, knowingly. So either the company lied, or the employees are lying, or both.
>Leaked Ice document shows worker detained in Hyundai raid had valid visa
>At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a huge immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian.
>Officials then “mandated” that he agree to be removed from the US despite not having violated his visa.
>According to the file written by an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an agency within Ice, the man entered the US “with a valid B1/B2 visa”, which allows for some business-related activities and tourism. He was at the Hyundai factory as a contractor with a South Korean company.
Is the blatant violation of the rights and dignity of at least one person not alarming enough for you? Shouldn't the rights of individuals be respected? And can a society that willingly turns a blind eye to such incidents still be called a constitutional state?
I don't entirely disagree with your position, but I'd still like to know. Or to put it another way:
When the media so blatantly cherry-pick what they choose to report and what they turn a blind eye to, can such a misinformed society really be called a democracy?
You're very sure about it without all the details being known and people possibly still wanting to get out safely, without causing further conflicts by speaking out. I've done enough travel / border chats that if I ended up in their situation, I'd be keen to shut up and get out as soon as possible, regardless of my legal status.
Exactly! But now they’re going to claim special treatment, avoid responsibility, and show their true attitudes beneath the surface: they don’t respect you or your laws.
This is not caused by Trump; its latent attitude being surfaced.
I once flew to the US for a week on ESTA to attend a few meetings (pre-COVID), but I mostly just did my regular developer work in the US office. By today’s standards, would I have been shackled for that?
Right but the purpose of the trip was to attend the business meeting and the person on the trip was also conducting their regular duties as a developer as well.
Attending meetings and conferences are rarely the main duties of an employee but they are the main purpose of trips.
Similarly to how, if you go to Mexico on a Tourist Visa but answer a critical work phone call you would not be breaching the terms of your visa as the purpose of your trip is still vacation. However if you rent a house for 5 months and spend most of that time doing developer work, I think that the authorities there might be a little upset.
From what I've read it's still an ESTA violation. When I went to the CES a few years ago my goal was clearly work, not vacation, and I did work from my hotel. I should have been arrested and put in chains, then publicly shamed for that I guess, even though my employer asked me to.
Was only planning a single family trip in the US in the next few years anyway, and Trump nicely gave me an argument to visit the Carribbean instead (because yes, I intend to work a few days from my vacation,I have to when I take more than a month off).
Is it "work" if it's done on behalf of the foreign company? It doesn't interact with anything in the US; people or taxes, so it has no impact on the US labor market or taxes.
Maybe. But that doesn’t excuse Korean companies violating immigration laws. Union workers who reported this and invited the raid have reported that this was a tactic taken to avoid paying local workers.
Why would Hyundai trust the competence of local workers? If US workforce was competent enough to build battery factory they would have built it without Hyundai. It's not like US lacks money. It just lacks everything else, including competence and common sense.
Koreans and the Korean government would have zero time for that excuse if e.g. a Chinese company gives the exact same reasoning to violate visa laws in Korea.
If a Chinese company was making a substantial investment in Korea, they would likely not be stupid enough to jeopardize the project over some paperwork.
Are there details on what visas Hyundai needed they couldn't get? L-1A/B for sending experts or management would make sense but I'm not sure there's any real issue getting those, especially not in 2023 when the plant was started.
They keep referring to the workers as contractors, which is a bit ambiguous as it is used for both people doing construction work or people hired for outside technical expertise.
If they were here in the first case of the word, I would say they were definitely in violation. If here for the second case, perhaps not but if they did not get the "B-1 in place of H-1B visa (temporary project visa): Some professionals might be eligible for a B-1 visa for temporary projects in specific scenarios. This option can be viable when an H-1B visa, typically used for specialty occupations, might be challenging to obtain." they may have still been in violation.
“Until now, the US was not in the position of requesting investment from us. But now, we hold the power as investors, and the US must respond to our demands.” Korean legislator.
Many Americans don't realize how badly Trump's bullying approach is backfiring internationally.
They don’t care. Social media has convinced them that this leads to high paying jobs for every do-nothing jagoff despite it not longer being the 1960s and nearly every good job requires specialized training of some degree.
Our immigration system was nightmare before Trump and it’s only going to get worse because no one in this admin has any real intention of fixing it for everyone’s benefit.
This is not caused by Trump pushing back against against these countries exploiting the United States. These countries already held these attitudes, now they’re just saying it in English.
You can easily check who exploits whom by looking at trade deficit. US got goods and services from every other country in the world in exchange for freshly printed paper. For many decades now.
Seems like they should have been on an L-B1 visa not a B1/B2 visa if that is what they were doing.
"The L-1B nonimmigrant classification enables a U.S. employer to transfer a professional employee with specialized knowledge relating to the organization’s interests from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the United States. This classification also enables a foreign company that does not yet have an affiliated U.S. office to send a specialized knowledge employee to the United States to help establish one."
I wonder what is so special about South Korea here. Companies from many other countries invest in the US, seemingly without the same problems. Is South Korea disadvantaged by the visa system, or is it coincidence that this happened here?
I can tell you that Australians travel for work to the USA on the ESTA visa wavier all the time. It specifically states on the form that it allows business travel. The idea that you can't do work trips to the US office on the visa waiver and that the only way to do this is with an extremely heavyweight working visa seems ridiculous.
It's not that the Koreans are the only one's doing this. It's that they were the first to hit by this very new interpretation of the law. Now that this interpretation is public i don't think anyone's going to the US for conferences/trade shows/general business trips for a few years.
ESTA is not the equivalent of a visa. Under the visa waiver program you’re very restricted on the kind of work you can do and how you can be compensated for it. This work was very clearly not in compliance. For example like the B-1 visa, “business meetings” under ESTA refer to passive attendance only, and do not include active business operations or contributions.
Every law has a lot of need for some interpretation. In the past the ESTA Business visa waiver was the recommended way in for short term working trips to the us office. In the past no one really worried to much if they typed a line of code or sent a work email. It’s clearly not in the spirit of the law to enforce too strictly imho.
This new extremely strict interpretation means that the only safe way to travel to the USA for work is on a h1-b or similar heavyweight working visas.
This is fine if you wish to interpret it this strictly. There are of course consequences and as noted by many many non-US people above the ESTA business visa waiver is near worthless under such strict interpretation. Which means no more short term trips to the US office nor conferences or trade shows. The lack of something lighter weight than a full working visa for these sorts of things means the USA is closed for business.
> The lack of something lighter weight than a full working visa for these sorts of things means the USA is closed for business.
What is “these sorts of things” to you? To me building factories and installing equipment on the factory floor is a different class of work that is generally prohibited under the lighter options like ESTA or a B1 visa. Here is what B1 allows as an example:
Consulting with business associates
Traveling for a scientific, educational, professional or business convention, or a conference on specific dates
Settling an estate
Negotiating a contract
Participating in short-term training
Transiting through the United States: certain persons may transit the United States with a B-1 visa
Deadheading: certain air crewmen may enter the United States as deadhead crew with a B-1 visa
If you trust ice it was a flagrant violation. If you don’t trust ice there’s a possibility these were engineers and management doing consultation and training as allowed but were caught up in minor technicalities of new overly strict interpretations of what counts as work.
I think many non-US residents observing this would be on the side of not trusting ice and are now less willing to travel to the USA for a work trip on a visa waiver.
I suspect (hope?) this lights a fuze to the inevitable realization by the Billionaire Bros that sucking up to the current administration cannot make up for its sheer ineptitude. (to cite a meme I saw: "He bankrupted a casino!! That's like a license to print money!"). And, since we know the billionaires actually run America, maybe this is the harbinger of some changes to the present dynamic that's needed to arrest the ongoing demolition of the The American Way.
I don’t think parading out engineers in shackles for a photo op was a good idea.
From another article:
> Images of South Koreans being shackled at the wrists and ankles have caused outrage in South Korea, a key U.S. ally in Asia that has pledged hundreds of billions in U.S. investment as part of tariff negotiations.
It’s just not smart, not good politics and not good business.
This is just American imperialism brought home, and it's already being targeted at American citizens themselves. Now you're starting to get a taste of how people in many countries feel about the US.
> It’s just not smart, not good politics and not good business.
So in other words SOP
Separate Our Priorities
*SOP for Republicans whenever they get ahold of government.
Yeah we just need to vote the other guys in! I'm gonna vooooote so hard.
This government has made big spectacle and promises on deportation. Though the government has seemingly denied there are reports that field offices need to make 75 arrests per day and failing to do so will lead to "accountability": https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/report-ice-directed-t...
This means there is a huge incentive to create spectacle out of arrests. So, that in case the field office lags behind, they can always point to the photo op - See how hard we were working there?
This might not hurt the government politically because supporters can see those hard hats and exclaim - See they were wearing hard hats, how were they not breaking the law?
But at the cost of creating an unnecessary diplomatic crisis. Even if there were visa issues, this puts South Korean government in a bind - they need to answer to their constituents. Being seen as incompetent and unable to save its citizen abroad is a sensitive topic in many countries.
Investments might be impacted as well. It seems to me that many Trump supporters think international politics requires blustering. But much of the work happens behind the scenes.
It may not be smart or good business but it's great politics. It's easy to blame foreigners for any perceived wrong, especially if they're breaking the rules. Your constituents believe that you're setting things right.
It will undoubtedly have negative financial effect on those same constituents, but there's always someone else to arrest and take the blame. It's fantastic politics.
Even if they aren’t breaking the rules, you just make your visa policies complicated enough that you can say they might be breaking rules and your constituents will just eat it all up. Meanwhile South Korea decides getting closer to China might be the better course of action.
I don’t think that’s the issue here? The workers were breaking the laws, unacceptable, but there is little evidence that they are a danger to society or the agents handling them. There could have been much better ways to handle this or maybe, hmm, not televise for the whole world to see. It was done to humiliate. Period.
ICE has bravely rescued us from the menace of people building battery factories. Forget fentanyl, trafficking, or violent crime—our real existential threat was clearly a few Korean engineers with power tools. Obviously, they were biding their time before graduating to cartel kingpins. And thank heavens the plant won’t be finished—who actually wants it and the jobs, infrastructure, etc it would bring.
Sleep well, folks—America is saved, one deported factory worker at a time.
The bit that gets me is another country is kinda handing over its technology to USA, so why get in the way?
When US engineers went to China to offshore US factories there, I doubt China got in the way. Probably watched with heavy interest but definitely not hindered in any way.
It’s the other end of the spectrum from migrants from other countries doing the large scale manual labor for little pay by American standards, but high pay by their own. Ultimately everyone benefits.
It’s not about economics. It’s about racism and nationalism through and through. You can’t look at it with a rationalist lens or it can’t make sense. The issue is the dilution of a perceived whiteness of the American identity being threatened by non-white immigration. It doesn’t matter why the Korean workers were here or how tenuous or nonexistent the immigration violation claims were. It matters they weren’t white.
For proof, which hasn’t been particularly hidden, see the extreme efforts to create a false narrative (including the president confronting a foreign leader with photographs from a completely different country) of white persecution in South Africa and a recalibration of refugee program to prioritize white South Africans. It’s the whole “reverse discrimination” malarkey (as if discrimination is structurally one way) playing out with fabrication and lies since they couldn’t find real facts. A rationalist argument can’t be found, because it’s not rational - it’s just racist nationalism.
This is going to be remembered in history globally as one of the embarrassing low points that beggars the question of American moral standing , which is likewise a fallacious tu quoque argument. What’s going on ignores the fact the founding fathers were enlightenment liberal humanists of the extreme degree, and while creatures of their time, endeavored hard to establish a construct in the constitution and bill of rights a system that will eventually and stably arrive at an ideal liberal humanist society. They recognized with pretty clear sightedness their own imperfections in this regard and recognized society changes slowly, but believed the constitution and bill of rights would make the change inexorable. I for one agree after studying it for some time. This means this aberration we see today, which is reminiscent of Sulla’s attack on the Roman republic, was well planned for an accounted for. They knew clearly and better than we do the natural tendency of man, and specifically corrupt ambitious racist theologists as their time was steeped in, and built a system that mean reverts always towards a liberal humanist outcome.
The question to my mind is will I live to see the damage undone and is my daughter equipped to right the ship in her life time.
>Ultimately everyone benefits. >It’s not about economics.
What about the local citizen who is clearly neither the migrant nor the capitalist, both of whom conduct wage arbitrage the local doesn't benefit from? How is that not economic and why is that assumed to be racist? Savannah is almost 50% Black https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah,_Georgia#Demographics but they can't employ a workforce that even maybe resembles the local demographics?
Why isn't it rational for the local citizens to see a business skirting the law to get American consumer dollars but avoid American wages and calculate that's not just not to their benefit, its to their detriment?
> who actually wants it and the jobs, infrastructure, etc it would bring.
I mean--if it's green tech, it has to be impeded. Otherwise how can we continue to burn oil?
I honestly don't think this administration wants economic allies
1. Lose all the allies, become isolated.
2. Allies are less powerful, the world starts another world war
3. Get sneakily attacked
4. Win the war by entering when everyone is already spent out after fighting for several years.
5. Everyone likes USA because they helped.
6. Profit.
Looks like history is about to make another turn of the same wheel, but this time WW1 is Russia (+China) <-> Ukraine (+EU). Russia will be rebuilt by China and start another round to get back on EU.
It's fascistic nihilism. They want brown people out of the country and money in their own pockets. If their out group suffers, what does it matter? If the economy crashes, or US world standing falls, who cares? What use is American idealism anyway?
s/economic//g
If I were Hyundai and had the cash to spare I would close and tear down the facility.
It feels like this was more done initially to meet a quota. Lady reports to ICE she thinks illegals working there. ICE does some sorta check and realized there might be an issue with a couple and extrapolated it to all Asians working in the facility. Saw a big juicy chance to roll out the team and detain a ton of people thinking it make Bondi and Trump happy. Now Trump is stuck looking weak to Koreans (and in turn china and India) or weak to his base depending on who he sides with which right now looks to be his base.
Yeah no.
Do you have another explanation?
Police in the US are way too quick to handcuff people. It should be reserved for violent or aggressive suspects, or at least require formal justification as is required in much of Europe. Police here will take a calm and cooperative person and rob them of their most fundamental human right, merely as a convenience.
I saw a body cam video on Youtube yesterday (which wasn't outrageous, so I doubt it was one of the fake ones.) It might have been edited to seem more out-of-line than it was, but I don't think it matters.
In it, a wife had died in the shower, and the husband and his father had been inside the house while the shower was on, but "had not talked to her."
Naturally, suspicions arose and they wanted to talk more to the husband, but the way the officers continued to rile up the father, who was probably in chock after finding out his son might be a murderer, was just pure unprofessionalism. They could have taken a step back, or avoided being four officers against one father, or any other obvious technique to de-escalate, but nope. Just continue pushing, arguing and believing that "doing our job" never means re-assessing the approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVo8PRRkWHc
Edit: spelling
such procedures don't appear from thin air - they indicate low trust toward citizens (or at least the worst cases of them) whether in the present, or in the past
I do see there undoubtedly is a lot of crazy policing happening but I also am sure a lot of it is because those types of incidents are what get the views. I know there are countless police interactions where they are kind and chill but that is boring to watch. Not saying the violence should get a pass just that I believe there are many good officers out there that do address issues calmly and are not quick to jump someone.
It's hard to tell if handling cooperative person in handcuffs is more convenient than without handcuffs.
It was probably good for white nationalists like Trump, his party and their voters though. They also don't seem to be interested in doing what's best for business.
It’s good for the fossil fuel industry and that’s why it was done.
> It’s good for the fossil fuel industry and that’s why it was done
How? (I’m really trying here.)
They raided a battery manufacturing facility. That's what I guess GP meant.
I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
When you do construction work, or operate the production line it has to be done by American Labour.
The visas they have only cover setup, repair and education of the production line.
At that LG/Hyundai factory they were using Korean contractors for construction. So there was some breaking of the terms of the visa for at least some of the people.
However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
Now you have many Koreans very upset. And people in my friends company are now scared to go to America even though they are management.
It's not good for anyone, it's just so short sighted!
> I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
You could just say you know someone at LG ;)
> However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
The point is to reach quotas. Warnings and voluntary exits don't help with those.
> Now you have many Koreans very upset.
FWIW, the reaction among Koreans (i.e. in korea), especially the younger generation, has been quite mixed. Among age 20-39, only a minority expressed being "disappointed with the US' excessive measures". Among the older groups, the majority did react negatively.
> Among age 20-39, only a minority expressed being "disappointed with the US' excessive measures."
huh? why??
The most common reasons among those who did not express disappointment:
- They'd want the very same thing to happen if the roles were reversed: foreign companies in Korea bringing in hundreds of people on questionable visas
- The companies knew exactly what they were doing, that it was illegal and that they were at risk. This had been coming for some time. Cases had been starting to pop up of those trying to do multiple consecutive visa runs (blatant abuse, but often instructed by these same companies) being denied.
- The employees who get sent on these business trips are often privileged and rich, so some take pleasure in seeing them not get away with something for once.
- Korean young MAGAs who love the concept of deportation and the current US gov
It used to be a wink wink agreement between the US and Korea. Yes, Korean companies break rules, but a lot of it tends to be directly related to the terms put in by the government. There’s milestones and deadlines that need to be met to ensure money gets released. But we all know what happens to construction projects here. There were some people definitely working on wrong visas.
https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...
Anyone who has worked for a larger than mom and pop company outside the US, who has been sent to the US by their company for some reason knows that the legality of their presence and type of visa needed is top of mind. Triple so when the company is as large as Hyundai. For certain they retain a specialist US immigration law firm.
Authoritarians love strong message optics, for better or worse or much worse.
Agree. Worse than short sighted.
Blindly foolish.
S Korea is an ally, treat them as such.
They're building a factory in the US. Be nice!
The Koreans are so generous! I don't think that any other country would be so polite if they were humiliated like this [1] after they made such big investments in your country. I don't get the feeling that many in the US understand that you are the one at disadvantage when you disrespect your investors. Is it because the US has never faced a diplomatic backlash before? At the minimum, the aggrieved party would hold the rest of the investments hostage and force you into making major concessions.
Anyway, the way ICE treats immigrants is going to cost the US dearly, both in monetary and in reputational terms. The US may not care much about the dignity of the foreigners, but their parent countries do. The charade about 'illegal immigrants' won't work anymore, because clearly that's not what's happening. It's like the foreigners are targeted to prove a political point to the domestic audience. ICE is acting like a rogue force and is really asking to be outlawed and sanctioned internationally. I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
[1] The news I got from a US source (don't remember which one) was that all of them except one were on valid temporary work visas to set up the plant and train the new US staff who would take over later. That one exception was also on a valid visa, but 'productive job' was not allowed. But he was there for training, so no violations there either.
> I want to see how long the rest of the world will remain restrained before they've had enough of the ICE abuse.
The rest of the world will remain restrained indefinitely. Yes, populist politics requires voicing outrage at this, but otherwise this is more a good thing than a bad thing.
Because salaries in the US in the real sector of the economy are often 5 times higher than even in other developed countries. So there is a huge drain of the best specialists to the US from all over the world. And no country wants to lose its best professionals.
I believe that ICE's own actions will remedy that situation too.
Personally I'd be very careful about traveling to the US office for a two week visit these days on an ESTA or similar Visa Waiver.
Historically people have done it and a blind eye has been turned, but with the climate these days you want to be 100% in compliance of your Visa conditions.
Here in Australia, we've received org-wide approval to just not go to the US if we cannot help it. It's not worth the risk.
Traditionally the to do work trips into the USA for Australia and other USA allies was the ESTA visa waiver that these Koreans were on.
From reading about what happened here it seems the South Koreans were on that visa waiver for their work trips. A lot of people claiming "it doesn't allow you to work" yet the visa waiver has a long long list of various types of work it does allow and it's pretty broad.
So it seems the ESTA isn't worth anything anymore. You can't go to the USA without a very very heavyweight working VISA. Ok. No more trade shows, conferences or general business trips.
> So it seems the ESTA isn't worth anything anymore. You can't go to the USA without a very very heavyweight working VISA.
There really isn’t much between a B-1 and an H1-B, so there isn’t much of a path forward here. That factory isn’t getting built until the USA re-instates previous exceptions.
My US-based company has the same policy for all international travel now to avoid any incidents coming back into the US.
US is on my no-fly list for many years now and most likely will stay there till my death.
Same, and I’m from Canada. Lots of international flights route thru the US. I have to make extra effort to avoid. Been doing that for 10 years. Just not worth the risk.
Isn’t that somewhat simplified by doing immigration for the USA at Canadian airports? In that case, I’d guess they could say no at the airport but you aren’t really at risk of being deported since you are still in Canada, and there are no emigration checks in American airports.
Not simplified much. By the silly rules in the US, during the transfer you must go thru immigration and even get your bags and check them in again.
Yes there’s pre clearance in Canada. This would ease the border a bit. But there’s still a risk that something somewhere will go wrong.
The main reason I stoped routing thru the US 10 years ago wasn’t ICE. I didn’t like the way border agents were rude and disrespectful. I felt like I was being interrogated every time and didn’t feel welcomed there. So I decided to vote with my wallet and simply not fly thru.
Oh, only on the inbound trip, outbound from Canada should check thru. Too bad America and Canada don’t do transfer zones like most non-Chinese airports in Asia and Europe.
Same. And many were glad when our head office moved from Houston to Madrid (22,000 employees)
Seems extreme.
Why? There are tons of reports of individuals getting stuck in detention for weeks for extremely minor or even no actual immigration offenses. I’ve traveled extensively across africa including some pretty shady countries and I now feel that I have to put the US in the same bucket: avoid, if not absolutely necessary, due to risks outside of my own control.
I mean, there’s literally hundreds of countries, why would I go somewhere with the risk of being arbitrarily detained, if I can help it at all?
I mean, unless you have a pressing reason to go there... there are lots of other places you could go which are less likely to randomly detain you.
Isn't it how it supposed to be? Valid Visa -> free to enter No valid Visa -> should be behind the bars
If you've ever traveled abroad and replied to a work email or worked on anything at your hotel there's a chance you violated visa rules in some form. Very easy to find a violation if you want to find one, following the letter and not the spirit of the law.
It was an ESTA, and yes, technically working from the US with an ESTA isn't allowed. I'm not invited to the CES since I've left the first company I worked for in 2020, but I definitely would have cancelled all my plans to do so until this is clarified. If I needed a full visa to get there, I probably wouldn't have.
Also that's not what happened. The ones responsible for the breach, IE Hyundai execs and management who took care of the visa waivers and asked their employees to setup production lines were not arrested, only the people who had little to say about capital allocation were. In a way, Hyundai investors would have been a better target than their workers since they choose the execs who chose to build in the USA.
Why behind bars? Isn't the obvious step to deport them?
The first step is to get them in front of a judge.
No, it’s to imprison them and have someone yell at them in English to sign a piece of paper written in English that says you agree to be deported.
The comment specifically mentions visa waivers and ESTA
That a gross misunderstanding of immigration laws, considering nearly all immigration violations are civil matters, not criminal.
No, probably not.
Thats disgusting.
America can’t build ships. Including warships.
In a war of attrition with China, guess which ally we’ll have to depend on to make our shit?
(Hint [1].)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_shipbuil...
They are also supplying Poland with the tanks it needs to defend itself.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/emerging/poland-signs-contra...
South Korea is way too close to China to be relied on n a war against China. Only if we have an overwhelming advantage and the war is mostly a defensive one for China, but I seriously doubt that would be the case.
> Korea is way too close to China to be relied on n a war against China
Enemy of thy enemy.
We protect Korea from the Kims. We also buy from them and treat them with dignity. Break those pillars and yes, China controls Asia and the Pacific in a way Yamamoto could have only dreamed of.
> and the war is mostly a defensive one for China
China holding Taiwan is a direct threat to the security of Seoul.
I get that, I just don’t think the front line will be so close to China. Even in the Korean War non-regular Chinese troops were able to take Seoul…twice. The country just isn’t very defensible in a war with China, not defensible enough to have it continue making ships uninterrupted.
> Enemy of thy enemy.
Some enemies are more beneficial to left unattended. Realistically, there are almost no scenarios in which it would be advantageous for Korea to enter a war against China.
> We protect Korea from the Kims. We also buy from them and treat them with dignity
Still not worth a war with China.
> Break those pillars and yes, China controls Asia and the Pacific
Still not worth changing sides to China
We could build them. We can invest. It doesn’t have to come from outside. But no matter what, catching up to China’s volume is not possible for many years.
It would require phasing out the Jones Act. Nobody is doing that.
It would also require not making American steel and energy uniquely expensive, and American industry uninvestable.
"If we don't continue outsourcing all of our know-how and industry, we won't be able to solve the problems caused by outsourcing all of our know-how and industry!"
Same as the solution to declining birthrates is to import more people to also not have children.
Neither addresses the problem just provides a way to ignore it for longer.
Has anyone disputed the validity of the visas of the workers which were deported? My understanding is that SK citizens cannot get E-4, so people came to the US and worked on a visa that didn’t allow working, and the US deported the people violating visa rules in a not nice way?
Im guessing this is the case or else the SK sources would be calling out that these workers were following visa rules?
In at least one case, a worker had a valid visa: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/hyundai-fact...
A valid visa possibly but not one valid for the type of work they are doing, which would have required an H1B. The article doesn’t seem to address this head on.
Did you read the leaked memo specifically ‘he has not violated his visa’ part?
Its right there in the link the parent gave. As in they had a visa and ice acknowledged no violation of the terms of that visa in very plain english.
I can’t really evaluate or trust that part - it’s a redacted quote from some unspecified doc from an unspecified source. My point is that building factories generally requires a different visa because ESTA and also B1 have many restrictions. The fact that it says B1/B2 in there undermines its credibility - one is a travel visa not a work one, and it doesn’t make sense to mention them interchangeably.
My B1/B2 visa literally says B1/B2 on it.
I have stamps from the US border that literally say B1/B2 on them.
If anything is undermining anyone's credibility here, it is not the article doing that.
"In practice, the two visa categories are usually combined and issued as a "B-1/B-2 visa" valid for a temporary visit for either business or pleasure, or a combination of the two."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_visa
There's also a picture of such a visa.
It looks to me like they may have been in breach of their visa depending on the work they were doing:
A B-1 / B-2 visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows foreign nationals to travel to the United States temporarily for business (B-1), tourism (B-2), or a mix of both (B1/B2). https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/b-1-b-2-visi...
B1 Visa Subcategories and Special Cases
While the B-1 visa generally restricts employment and formal education, there are some exceptions under specific circumstances. These exceptions aren’t separate visa categories but annotations considered by the U.S. consular officers during the visitor visa application process.
Here’s a closer look at these special B-1 subcategories:
B-1 after-sales service visa: Companies selling equipment to the U.S. can leverage this visa to send assemblers for on-site service orders. Think of it as temporary technical support. These assemblers can perform tasks like installation, maintenance, and training, but the assembly work must be done by U.S. personnel.
B-1 in place of H-1B visa (temporary project visa): Some professionals might be eligible for a B-1 visa for temporary projects in specific scenarios. This option can be viable when an H-1B visa, typically used for specialty occupations, might be challenging to obtain.
B-1 instead of H-3 visa (short-term training): Under certain conditions, the B-1 category can be used for brief in-house training sessions or further employee education. It allows for skills development without needing a dedicated H-3 visa designed for trainee positions.
IMPORTANT! These B1 business visa exceptions have strict requirements. Working with an immigration service provider or lawyer is highly recommended to determine if a particular B-1 visa category fits your situation.
https://www.immigrationdirect.com/guides/b1-b2-visitor-visa/
From the friendly link, ICE itself says he did not violate his visa conditions in any way:
From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”
The Guardian offers no evidence for this. Just a vague claim of some doc leaked from someone. But even that text doesn’t seem credible. Why would it say “not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements”? Which is it? B1 is a business visa. B2 is for tourism. It doesn’t make sense to claim they aren’t violating the requirements of these two very different visas.
Right.
I don't trust the government and if they are in fact violating the law than I hope that there is recourse, I would bet however that there is a clause somewhere that says that they can rescind status if they like.
However The Guardian's evidence is a couple quotes from a leaked document, not a scan of the leaked document.
We do however learn the worker was from SFA: https://www.kedglobal.com/korean-smes/newsView/ked2022050900...
So probably not doing construction work as some of the claims and only arrived in June so not close to the start term of the B1/B2 6 mo allowed duration.
They're not very different visas; they're very often (always?) issued as B1/B2 visa.
Why would someone sent here by their company for work reasons have both?
They don't have "both", it's literally (usually) issued as single visa sticker whenever you apply for either.
You seem to try to make a bigger distinction between B1 and B2 than the US government does.
Are you saying the form you fill out doesn’t ask you the purpose of your visit?
"Purpose of your visit" in the context of a multi-entry visa with a ten year validity period, is a rather nebulous term.
I don't really remember, it's been 10y since I last had to fill out a DS-160, but I don't think so.
You probably will get asked about the purpose of your _first visit_ in the interview though.
Even setting that all aside, B1/B2 are _obviously_ very often combined together.
"I'm going for a conference, and then I'm going to do some sightseeing on the weekend" is something that, under some very strict and specific reading of the law, would require a B1/B2 visa for example.
If you want to be extremely strict in reading the law, you can't really attend a conference on a B1, and sightseeing would require a B2.
> My understanding is that SK citizens cannot get E-4
Nobody can, because it doesn’t exist. The E-4 visa mentioned in the article is a proposed new classification that a bill pending in Congress would, if enacted, create just for Korean workers, similar to the existing E-3 classification for Australians.
Would that be done by congress? I thought all nonimmigrant-intent work visas like that were written into treaties.
Yes, by Congress, even if and when required by a treaty or other international agreement. Look up §101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, codified at 8 USC §1101(a)(15), for all the nonimmigrant classifications:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1101
8 USC §1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) has H-1B, 8 USC §1101(a)(15)(E)(iii) has E-3, and so on.
A treaty is not self-executing under US law unless it is both ratified by 2/3 of the Senate pursuant to the Treaty Clause of the Constitution and also contains language expressing that it will be self-executing upon ratification, in which case it has the same domestic legal effect as an Act of Congress. See Medellín v. Texas, 552 U.S. 491 (2008), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medell%C3%ADn_v._Texas for a recent SCOTUS precedent about this.
Many agreements which are treated internationally as treaties, including most US free trade agreements, are not considered as such for purposes of US constitutional law; many others are not self-executing even when they are ratified through the Treaty Clause procedure. These only have effect in US domestic law when implemented by implementing legislation passed by Congress, or to whatever extent the executive branch handles implementation through regulations, policies, or similar which it already has the authority to promulgate without new legislation.
They’re written into US immigration law, possibly having been negotiated in a treaty earlier.
I've not seen any good summary of whether any/some/all of those arrested had actually committed any sort of immigration violation. I would love to see some actual truth about it.
There's definitely a dispute over whether at least some of the people detained were operating within the bounds of their visa's: https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/lawyer-says...
It's also very noteworthy that these people are still being imprisoned in the US on Donald Trump's orders - Trump having personally prevented the repatriation of the Koreans to Korea today. There is absolutely no reason to believe that we have the full story, or that the Korean government, or the Korean's individual friends/families/represetnatives feel free to speak freely as America seemingly holds their citizens hostage. To say that lack of further public disputes is proof that there is not more to dispute seems false to me.
That is a bit hyperbolic to say they are being held hostage, the government has accused them of a crime and is holding them while they are given due process.
We can debate the validity of the government's claim, I have seen an article which says that the workers were on B1/B2 Visa which has strict requirements for what is allowed from what I have read but also says the government in it's internal report also stated no crime was committed.
Which countries just repatriate those they accuse of crimes rather than prosecute?
No - there is no due process or criminal charges at play here. The government detained them per immigration law in order to deport them, for the sake of argument lawfully. The government arranged to repatriate them. Then in order to attempt to negotiate a business deal Donald Trump ordered them not repatriated, and instead to be continued to be held in US custody without trial, without criminal charges, and without even the suggestion that the purpose was to charge them criminally. Rather the explicit purpose was to attempt to negotiate a business deal where they would remain working in the US.
Holding people in custody in order to negotiate a business deal is the definition of hostage taking.
> Trump having personally prevented the repatriation of the Koreans to Korea today
Can’t see past the paywall but what did he do? Prevent the charter flight from landing?
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-korea-nationals-r...
> South Korean officials originally hoped the Korean Air plane would leave Atlanta as early as Wednesday afternoon local time, shortly after it arrived from Seoul. But the foreign ministry said its departure was likely to be delayed “due to circumstances on the U.S. side,” and a spokesperson for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport later said that the charter flight had been canceled.
> At a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun learned that Trump had ordered the suspension of the repatriation process in order to discuss with South Korea whether its detained nationals — all of them skilled workers who were helping to set up an electric vehicle battery plant — should remain in the U.S. to continue their work rather than being sent home.
Wow. Sometimes it feels like I’m living in an Onion timeline.
I think there feeling is, you say you want us to build our products in the U.S. but then our essential workers aren't allowed in so it's an impossible demand.
It’s my understanding that a lot of them were on B-1 visas.
But South Korean are eligible for ESTA program.
IIRC, US embassies in eligible countries are usually very picky about issuing B-1 visas. They assume ESTA works in most cases, so you need a strong reason to apply for B-1.
Yeah bringing in people on a tourists visa would have been unthinkable at any place I've ever worked.
When I worked at Salesforce Japan, I went to conferences in the US. I always honestly said it was for business when entering the country. I spent nearly the whole time at the office, and answered emails from customers and clients.
No one asked about visas. I didn't think that was an issue since I really was there for a week for a business conference, but maybe it was? After all, technically it was a "Tourist" visa.
In the end though, SFDC keeps almost all of its technical talent in the US. If the government really got annoying, they probably would have stuck to the local talent and forgotten about the rest of us.
The ESTA visa waiver which is the easiest way into the USA for allied nations specifically allows meetings, consultation, training and states that installation of advanced equipment is allowed under that visa.
The question being asked by the parent is if they stepped outside the boundaries of that visa waiver.
There are more options than "tourist" and "working" visa. Your message is significantly oversimplifying it. Until we know what they were actually doing at work (really, not claimed by ice), we won't know how valid their stay was.
None of them were actually on tourist visas from what I heard, so you can be confident in your unthinkable situations.
It was a clear violation, the rest of this is just posturing for politics. Most of the people had come on the wrong visa, knowingly. So either the company lied, or the employees are lying, or both.
>Leaked Ice document shows worker detained in Hyundai raid had valid visa
>At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a huge immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian.
>Officials then “mandated” that he agree to be removed from the US despite not having violated his visa.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/hyundai-fact...
>According to the file written by an agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), an agency within Ice, the man entered the US “with a valid B1/B2 visa”, which allows for some business-related activities and tourism. He was at the Hyundai factory as a contractor with a South Korean company.
I did some research on B1/B2 Visa's it looks like the work allowed is rather restricted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45207369
"worker", singular. And the rest?
Is the blatant violation of the rights and dignity of at least one person not alarming enough for you? Shouldn't the rights of individuals be respected? And can a society that willingly turns a blind eye to such incidents still be called a constitutional state?
I don't entirely disagree with your position, but I'd still like to know. Or to put it another way:
When the media so blatantly cherry-pick what they choose to report and what they turn a blind eye to, can such a misinformed society really be called a democracy?
> It was a clear violation
Can you show us the proof?
> Most of the people had come on the wrong visa
Can you show us the proof?
> knowingly
Can you show us the proof?
You're very sure about it without all the details being known and people possibly still wanting to get out safely, without causing further conflicts by speaking out. I've done enough travel / border chats that if I ended up in their situation, I'd be keen to shut up and get out as soon as possible, regardless of my legal status.
Exactly! But now they’re going to claim special treatment, avoid responsibility, and show their true attitudes beneath the surface: they don’t respect you or your laws.
This is not caused by Trump; its latent attitude being surfaced.
I once flew to the US for a week on ESTA to attend a few meetings (pre-COVID), but I mostly just did my regular developer work in the US office. By today’s standards, would I have been shackled for that?
That's what it seems like. Some people here disagree with you, but I can add anecdata that my employer insisted I do no coding on such a VISA.
No: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/business... >A foreigner traveling to the United States to conduct temporary business must have a visitor visa (B) unless qualifying for entry under the Visa Waiver Program.
Examples of temporary business include:
Attending business meetings or consultations Attending a business convention or conference Negotiating contracts
The meeting is fine. The developer work is not.
Right but the purpose of the trip was to attend the business meeting and the person on the trip was also conducting their regular duties as a developer as well.
Attending meetings and conferences are rarely the main duties of an employee but they are the main purpose of trips.
Similarly to how, if you go to Mexico on a Tourist Visa but answer a critical work phone call you would not be breaching the terms of your visa as the purpose of your trip is still vacation. However if you rent a house for 5 months and spend most of that time doing developer work, I think that the authorities there might be a little upset.
From what I've read it's still an ESTA violation. When I went to the CES a few years ago my goal was clearly work, not vacation, and I did work from my hotel. I should have been arrested and put in chains, then publicly shamed for that I guess, even though my employer asked me to.
Was only planning a single family trip in the US in the next few years anyway, and Trump nicely gave me an argument to visit the Carribbean instead (because yes, I intend to work a few days from my vacation,I have to when I take more than a month off).
Is it "work" if it's done on behalf of the foreign company? It doesn't interact with anything in the US; people or taxes, so it has no impact on the US labor market or taxes.
If there's a photo op opportunity I'm sure you would be.
What color is your skin?
Yes.
This will likely hit tourism from SK as well, which is already down 15%.
The US immigration system is an overcomplicated mess, and seemingly no one in government wants to change it. Maybe change will happen now.
Maybe. But that doesn’t excuse Korean companies violating immigration laws. Union workers who reported this and invited the raid have reported that this was a tactic taken to avoid paying local workers.
That's what I've been trying to determine because of all the fake news on both sides...did they actually do anything wrong?
Because if so, this outrage feels a bit "No stop, those aren't the color immigrants we wanted you to round up."
Why would Hyundai trust the competence of local workers? If US workforce was competent enough to build battery factory they would have built it without Hyundai. It's not like US lacks money. It just lacks everything else, including competence and common sense.
It was probably a tactic to get stuff done.
Koreans and the Korean government would have zero time for that excuse if e.g. a Chinese company gives the exact same reasoning to violate visa laws in Korea.
If a Chinese company was making a substantial investment in Korea, they would likely not be stupid enough to jeopardize the project over some paperwork.
Are there details on what visas Hyundai needed they couldn't get? L-1A/B for sending experts or management would make sense but I'm not sure there's any real issue getting those, especially not in 2023 when the plant was started.
They keep referring to the workers as contractors, which is a bit ambiguous as it is used for both people doing construction work or people hired for outside technical expertise.
There were here on B1/B2 Visas according to the reporting, which has a 6 month duration and rather strict requirements: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45207369
If they were here in the first case of the word, I would say they were definitely in violation. If here for the second case, perhaps not but if they did not get the "B-1 in place of H-1B visa (temporary project visa): Some professionals might be eligible for a B-1 visa for temporary projects in specific scenarios. This option can be viable when an H-1B visa, typically used for specialty occupations, might be challenging to obtain." they may have still been in violation.
There is a visa called a B1 in lieu of an H1B. Its for 6 months max and i have been on it.
“Until now, the US was not in the position of requesting investment from us. But now, we hold the power as investors, and the US must respond to our demands.” Korean legislator.
Many Americans don't realize how badly Trump's bullying approach is backfiring internationally.
They don’t care. Social media has convinced them that this leads to high paying jobs for every do-nothing jagoff despite it not longer being the 1960s and nearly every good job requires specialized training of some degree.
Our immigration system was nightmare before Trump and it’s only going to get worse because no one in this admin has any real intention of fixing it for everyone’s benefit.
This is not caused by Trump pushing back against against these countries exploiting the United States. These countries already held these attitudes, now they’re just saying it in English.
Exactly how did South Korea exploit the United States?
You can easily check who exploits whom by looking at trade deficit. US got goods and services from every other country in the world in exchange for freshly printed paper. For many decades now.
This was pretty predictable. What is also predictable is that it isn't just South Korea that came to that conclusion.
The boiled frog of American democracy has dissolved into a mess but people still think it is a thing.
I'll bet the North Korean government picks up the raid and uses it as propaganda on their state TV, as an example of "How americans treat koreans".
If the US builds a plant in Korea, can it hire Americans hundreds to do the work?
https://www.immigration.go.kr/immigration_eng/1852/subview.d...
Doesn't look like it. Several restrictions on how many (max 5) dependent upon the construction budget.
If Korea selectively needs to bring over skilled workers, there are options. But hundreds?
> If the US builds a plant in Korea, can it hire Americans hundreds to do the work?
No, it absolutely can't. I'm familiar with the Korean visa system, and you're correct.
To start up a factory and train local workers, eventually numbering thousands, in a new industrial process? Hundreds, easily.
Seems like they should have been on an L-B1 visa not a B1/B2 visa if that is what they were doing.
"The L-1B nonimmigrant classification enables a U.S. employer to transfer a professional employee with specialized knowledge relating to the organization’s interests from one of its affiliated foreign offices to one of its offices in the United States. This classification also enables a foreign company that does not yet have an affiliated U.S. office to send a specialized knowledge employee to the United States to help establish one."
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...
There is also the B1 in lieu of an H1B
I wonder what is so special about South Korea here. Companies from many other countries invest in the US, seemingly without the same problems. Is South Korea disadvantaged by the visa system, or is it coincidence that this happened here?
I can tell you that Australians travel for work to the USA on the ESTA visa wavier all the time. It specifically states on the form that it allows business travel. The idea that you can't do work trips to the US office on the visa waiver and that the only way to do this is with an extremely heavyweight working visa seems ridiculous.
It's not that the Koreans are the only one's doing this. It's that they were the first to hit by this very new interpretation of the law. Now that this interpretation is public i don't think anyone's going to the US for conferences/trade shows/general business trips for a few years.
ESTA is not the equivalent of a visa. Under the visa waiver program you’re very restricted on the kind of work you can do and how you can be compensated for it. This work was very clearly not in compliance. For example like the B-1 visa, “business meetings” under ESTA refer to passive attendance only, and do not include active business operations or contributions.
Every law has a lot of need for some interpretation. In the past the ESTA Business visa waiver was the recommended way in for short term working trips to the us office. In the past no one really worried to much if they typed a line of code or sent a work email. It’s clearly not in the spirit of the law to enforce too strictly imho.
This new extremely strict interpretation means that the only safe way to travel to the USA for work is on a h1-b or similar heavyweight working visas.
This is fine if you wish to interpret it this strictly. There are of course consequences and as noted by many many non-US people above the ESTA business visa waiver is near worthless under such strict interpretation. Which means no more short term trips to the US office nor conferences or trade shows. The lack of something lighter weight than a full working visa for these sorts of things means the USA is closed for business.
> The lack of something lighter weight than a full working visa for these sorts of things means the USA is closed for business.
What is “these sorts of things” to you? To me building factories and installing equipment on the factory floor is a different class of work that is generally prohibited under the lighter options like ESTA or a B1 visa. Here is what B1 allows as an example:
Consulting with business associates
Traveling for a scientific, educational, professional or business convention, or a conference on specific dates
Settling an estate
Negotiating a contract
Participating in short-term training
Transiting through the United States: certain persons may transit the United States with a B-1 visa
Deadheading: certain air crewmen may enter the United States as deadhead crew with a B-1 visa
Installing equipment, is, in fact, explicitly called out as allowed under B-1 visa by the State Department: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/BusinessVisa%20Pu...
If you trust ice it was a flagrant violation. If you don’t trust ice there’s a possibility these were engineers and management doing consultation and training as allowed but were caught up in minor technicalities of new overly strict interpretations of what counts as work.
I think many non-US residents observing this would be on the side of not trusting ice and are now less willing to travel to the USA for a work trip on a visa waiver.
I suspect (hope?) this lights a fuze to the inevitable realization by the Billionaire Bros that sucking up to the current administration cannot make up for its sheer ineptitude. (to cite a meme I saw: "He bankrupted a casino!! That's like a license to print money!"). And, since we know the billionaires actually run America, maybe this is the harbinger of some changes to the present dynamic that's needed to arrest the ongoing demolition of the The American Way.
Clearly the US wants people to apply for expensive visas when going to CES or defcon. I guarantee you people won't bother.