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Many of the workers arrested in a large US immigration raid at a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia had overstayed or misused visitor visas, officials said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained 475 people on Thursday, most of them South Korean citizens. ICE said the raid was needed to protect US jobs, since tourist and short-term business visas do not allow employment.
South Korea, whose firms have pledged billions in US investment to avoid tariffs, quickly sent diplomats to Georgia and demanded that its citizens be treated fairly.
More than 300 Koreans are reported to be among those detained, now held in Folkston, Georgia, while ICE decides where to move them. Hyundai stressed that the workers were not direct employees, while LG Energy Solution, which runs the plant with Hyundai, said it would cooperate fully with authorities.
ICE called the raid part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Officials also said one detainee was a Mexican green card holder with prior convictions.
But an immigration lawyer in Atlanta claimed some of those arrested were wrongly caught up, including two of his clients who were legally in the US under a visa waiver programme and had only been attending business meetings.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said its citizens’ rights must not be unfairly infringed.
The raid highlights tension between President Donald Trump’s push to grow US manufacturing and his tough stance on immigration. Speaking in Washington, Trump said ICE was “just doing its job” and repeated his claim that illegal migrants take American jobs.
The Georgia factory, making electric vehicles, had been hailed as the biggest economic project in the state’s history, with 1,200 jobs promised.
Source: BBC
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