Many of the South Korean workers who were detained during last week’s large-scale Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at a plant in Georgia were brought into the U.S. for specialized work, according to an Atlanta-based attorney representing some of the employees.
Immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents four of the Korean nationals who were detained last Thursday, told The Associated Press (AP) that many of the workers are equipment installers and engineers who are on a B-1 visitor visa.
“The vast majority of the individuals that were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that were South Korean were either there as engineers or were involved in after-sales service and installation,” Kuck told the AP on Monday.
The ICE raid targeted Hyundai Motor Group’s manufacturing site, where about 1,200 people were employed. Nearly 500 workers were detained on Thursday, including over 300 South Korean nationals, South Korea’s foreign minister, Cho Hyun said.
Steven Schrank, the top agent of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Georgia, said that some of the detained employees entered the U.S. illegally, while others came in with authorization by overstayed their visas. Some were allowed to come into the country but were not authorized to work, the attorney added.
Kuck also noted that many of the employees were working under the B-1 visa program, were looking to be in the U.S. for a few weeks and “never longer than 75 days.”
President Trump said that the workers were in the U.S. “illegally” and argued that Washington needs to strike a deal to have experts prepare and train Americans to do specialized work when it comes to battery manufacturing.
“This is not something new. We’ve been doing this forever, and we do it — when we ship things abroad, we send our folks there to take care of it,” Kuck said, adding that machines at the Georgia plant are no made by any company within the U.S.
Cho Hyun, South Korea’s foreign minister, was reportedly set to be in the U.S. this week to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other U.S. officials to talk about the deal to release the Korean workers.
