U.S.-South Korea ties strained as 300 Koreans detained by ICE at Georgia Hyundai plant wait to fly home
Source: CBS News
By Ramy Inocencio, Jen Kwon
Updated on: September 10, 2025 / 12:12 PM EDT / CBS News
The raid and the detention of hundreds of South Koreans in an ICE facility has tested U.S.-South Korea ties that are important politically, militarily and economically. South Korea is the biggest foreign direct investor in the U.S. and the sixth biggest trading partner overall.
South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the departure of the Air Korea charter flight, which had been expected on Wednesday, was delayed due to unspecified circumstances in the U.S., but it would not provide any further information.
A spokesperson for Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta told CBS News that the charter operation to transport the detainees had been canceled for Wednesday, subject to change. The spokesperson did not provide any information on the reason for the change in plans.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-south-korean-workers-ice-raid-ties-strained-georgia-hyundai-plant/
The US canceled the flight. Not smart and not good.

lapfog_1
(31,270 posts)lay off all the workers.
Let's see how that makes Georgia Great Again.
maxsolomon
(37,349 posts)What kind of visa/work permit were these 300 Koreans on, anyway?
As we know, any violation of US is grounds for expulsion.
muriel_volestrangler
(104,686 posts)Their departure was delayed because of an instruction from the White House, Lee added.
President Donald Trump ordered the pause to check whether the workers were willing to remain in the US to continue working and training Americans, according to a South Korean foreign ministry official.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly0e4k750go
He hasn't a fucking clue on how to behave like a normal human being, has he?
FormerOstrich
(2,842 posts)It's hard to comprehend....
after considerable surveillance, so they said, they identified illegal employment practices. They storm in and arrest workers and shackle them. Obviously they are considered a "worse of the worse" and "dangerous threat"
Next up are tidbits about how there was trafficking. Along with the "let this be a warning....we are going after employers which break the law. Apparently going after employers means arresting and shackling the workers and not the bosses.
THEN the trip out of the country is delayed to see if any of these skilled workers want to stay and train US workers (presumably now they are no longer a threat and the restraints are taken off.
It sounds to me like a phone call to the proper decision makers could have yielded identifying the VISA issues and seeking a solutions. Instead they rip apart 400 workers lives (in a cruel and humiliating way) .
Disgusting!
groundloop
(13,269 posts)Maybe a coincidence, but I doubt it.
DFW
(58,923 posts)Open in a state that has a governor far more interested in pleasing his state's economy and the people who depend on it than pleasing Noem, Bondi, and Miller.
Bring the jobs that can be filled by US workers and the tax flow that goes with such an operation. States find out quickly which foreign investments are comfortable there, and which are not. I think South Korea probably has a good idea by now whether or not the business environment in a Republican-led (Ossoff and Warnock notwithstanding) state is welcoming or not. Or, if Hyundai stays, they do it because Ossoff and Warnock intervene publicly and prominently, and that Hyundai makes it clear who is responsible for the decision to stay.
I remember that during the first Trump administration, some idiot cop in Alabama arrested a visiting German at the huge Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama. Some alert officials got with the Alabama government VERY quickly, and got the visiting German manager released with an apology. I would have loved to have seen that Mercedes plant moved to someplace like Virginia due to one pissed off and very insulted German. That Alabama cop would have been directing traffic at a lonely intersection in a Birmingham suburb for the rest of his career.