US-Korea agreement on 300 detained workers. They will soon return home
South Koreans involved in the construction of an Lg and Hyundai plant in Georgia were arrested on Thursday in an anti-immigration raid that targeted 475 people and blocked the construction site
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From our correspondent
NEW DELHI - South Korea's government has reached an agreement with the United States to obtain the release of hundreds of workers detained in recent days in Georgia, where they were building a battery production plant for electric vehicles for Lg and Hyundai. According to the chief of staff of the new South Korean president Lee Jae Myung, only a few administrative formalities are missing, and as soon as they are completed the more than 300 workers will be repatriated aboard a special flight.
Negotiations for their release became necessary after a resounding raid by the American authorities on the construction site that is being built next to a Hyundai plant that already employs 1,200 people and is one of the largest industrial presidia built in Georgia, a state in the southern US with a poverty rate higher than the national average. In the course of the operation - which led to the blockade of the site - 475 people were detained, including over 300 South Koreans.
Some of them are employees of Lg and construction companies working on the site who entered the US on various types of visas or through a programme designed to bypass bureaucratic obstacles to the immigration of specialised personnel. In recent months, South Korea has been one of the countries that has responded most willingly to American pressure for some exports to the US to be replaced by production there, with investments in factories and plants.
Thursday's anti-immigration operation by US authorities is but the most sensational episode in a controversial America First campaign by the Trump administration that is targeting foreign workers with the aim of deporting them or pushing them to leave the country. According to some observers, the government's raids are already weighing on the US labour market - which is showing clear signs of cooling down - and in the future they could also reverberate on inflation trends, adding to the effect of tariffs on the prices of imported goods.
