Hyundai battery plant faces startup delay after US immigration raid, CEO says | Hacker News Reader

Hyundai battery plant faces startup delay after US immigration raid, CEO says

japantimes.co.jp

61 pointsanigbrowl64 comments

Having working in US immigration, most reporting on immigration issues leaves a lot to be desired.

Because of the poor reporting, it's not possible to say for sure what happened, but it sounds like Hyundai/LG/subcontractors brought in hundreds of South Koreans on B visas and had them engaging in productive work. That's not what B visas are for. B visas are for meetings, sales, and maybe some light training/setup/integration. When the CEO talks about needing specialized, skilled workers, that's a strong suggestion these workers should have been on L visas.

Times reporting confirmed a few of the workers were on B visas: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/business/economy/hyundai-...

Unfortunately the same article doesn't even mention the L visa, and cites an immigration lawyer who complains about the difficulty of getting H-1B visas. But L visas are not capped like H-1Bs. In India we approved thousands of L visas specifically for skilled workers to assist with bringing plants/equipment online.

In short, the B visa is not a work visa. Most countries worldwide are quite restrictive about the conditions surrounding work visas, and people who violate the conditions of their visa shouldn't be surprised when there are consequences. Having a valid visa but violating its conditions means you are violating immigration law.

Corporate immigration departments can and do cut corners and may have thought they would save money and time by sending foreign workers on B visas (which they might have already had) or on the visa waiver program. L visa holders don't even have to get paid US-level wages, so one take on the visa type is that it is already a way for companies to undercut US labor.

So the US government does a dog and pony show of ASMR chaining and perp walking Korean engineers constructing a factory vital to our economy and national security?

And this after the admin starts a tariff war against treaty allies for not building factories in the US? Very schizo.

This whole situation is complete insanity and is completely the fault of this administration and the maga movement.

It’s also the fault of the last administration, because when you bend the rules and your reign ends, you have no control over how the next regime is going to enforce the law as it stands. I do not disagree this is insanity, but this is the result of kicking the can on immigration issues for almost two decades. Congress must do its job, but refuses to. Is it not reasonable to both incentivize domestic manufacturing investment while also adhering to immigration visa regulations?

Hyundai has done something similar with children refugees from Central America previously in 2022.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Alabama_child_labor_al...

The reporting is light on what these workers are actually doing. Real construction work like pouring concrete is certainly unacceptable on a B visa. But as you have said B visas are fine for light training/setup/integration. It seems to me that these people are actually just setting up the plant by configuring new machinery.

> and maybe some light training/setup/integration.

What do you mean by "maybe" or "light"? That's an explicitly permitted activity:

> A B-1 visa may be granted to specialized workers going to the United States to install, service, or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery purchased from a company outside of the United States, or to train U.S. workers to perform such services.

https://es.usembassy.gov/visas/commercial-industrial-workers...

Modern factories are filled with machines the size of buildings, making that installation sometimes hard to distinguish from the forbidden "construction". It's possible that some of those Koreans were unequivocally on the bad side of the line, but I see zero possibility that the agents could have meaningfully assessed that in the time between beginning the raid and taking the workers away in shackles.

I feel like installing equipment is widely considered to be an illegitimate use of B-1 visas, despite this explicit guidance. I don't understand why. I see from your comment history that you were a US diplomat. Is the internal guidance you received different from what's published?

> Is the internal guidance you received different from what's published?

Probably, I doubt anyone in the US government has a consistent view of what immigration laws are _and_ how they're actually enforced. Whole thing feels like a giant slapdash of things thrown together and assessed in whatever way feels right that day.

Here's a fun one: do people born in Hong Kong count as being born in China for green card purposes? Used to be no, then Trump 1 said "yes" with an executive order, then as best I can tell no one in government really enforced that, then immigration lawyers tell me they're counted as rest of world instead of China, and now? Who the hell knows, whoever gets your case probably makes up what they feel is the law.

Like anything in law, it depends on the details, context, case law, and possibly future litigation.

CPB's Q&A on permissible B-1 visa activities (PDF): https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/documents/B-1%20perm...

"If the contract of sale specifically requires the seller to provide these services or training, and you possess specialized knowledge essential to the seller's contractual obligation to perform the services or training it may be permissible for you to perform these services. In addition, the machinery or equipment must have been manufactured at a location outside of the United States and you may not receive compensation from a U.S. source."

Given how vague the reporting has been, we don't know basic facts like what the workers were doing, what the agents saw, what types of visas they were on, etc.

This PBS article quotes a local labor union leader who claims "unions that are part of her council believe Korean workers have been pouring cement, erecting steel, performing carpentry and fitting pipes." https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/attorney-says-detained-k...

Obivously the person quoted has an agenda and didn't actually witness those activities - so we just don't know. That being said, if that description is accurate, in general that kind of activity would not be appropriate on a B-1 visa and wouldn't qualify for an L visa.

But again, it depends on the details. Maybe the cement base is some special blend for certain equipment, maybe "erecting steel" involves highly specialized welding techniques, maybe this pipe fitting involves specialized high-pressure ratings outside the norm.

When I was a diplomat, our internal guidance (at least, what I was privy to) was never different from public information, just more detailed.

I'd be suprised if the corporate immigration departments of Hyundai or LG messed up this badly. But I wouldn't at all be surprised if some no-name subcontractor decided to play fast and loose with the visa rules to win a contract with a low bid.

> But I wouldn't at all be surprised if some no-name subcontractor decided to play fast and loose with the visa rules to win a contract with a low bid.

I feel like "subcontractor" here could mean "staffing agency used by Hyundai to shed liability", but could also mean "equipment vendor". The latter seems much less likely to be noncompliant, since they get the special benefit of the policy we're discussing and since customer-site labor is a smaller share of their cost (since their primary business is building the machines in Korea).

A lawyer for some equipment vendor staff seems to be alleging that their B-1 applications had been drafted specifically to comply with this policy:

> Kuck said letters included with visa applications that he reviewed spelled out the scope of the work and appeared to meet requirements.

> "It was more detailed than some of the letters that I've written for clients in similar situations," he said. "The vast majority of folks, including the ones I represent, should never have been detained."

https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/lawyer-says...

I guess it's likely that at least one person detained was unlawfully present, and at least one person detained was lawfully present. The actual ratio is still unknown, but the reputational damage is done--"we took you away in chains, imprisoned you for a week, and deported you, but that's okay because a different worker at your site was noncompliant" is not a great message.

I don't find the claims made by an immigration lawyer representing the workers to be particularly persuasive, just like I don't find the claims made by the local union rep about what they "believe" the workers were doing to be persuasive.

People and companies can and do write whatever they want in letters submitted with visa applications. That has no bearing 1) on what you are actually allowed to do given a certain visa type, and 2) what the worker actually ends up doing.

In other words, the visa applications may very well have been valid and approved on that basis, but the applicants might have been engaging in other activities that were not permissible. This is quite common - people will say "I want to go to Disneyworld" when they actually intend to overstay their visa, or "I want to visit family" when they actually intend to work as a nanny or cook for a few months, then return home.

I'm not saying this raid was conducted properly or that all the arrests were justified, but I do think the reporting on it has been almost negligent. In contrast, here is an old article written by an immigration lawyer discussing the complexities of the B-1 business visa: https://blog.cyrusmehta.com/2016/05/the-b-1-visa-trap-for-th...

People and companies can and do write whatever they want in letters submitted with visa applications. That has no bearing 1) on what you are actually allowed to do

Is it really as kafkaesque as you state? You have to enumerate your planned activities in order to get a visa, but receiving said visa is in no way an affirmation that the enumerated activities are legal to perform? That sounds completely dysfunctional to me.

It is the traveler's responsibility to know what activities are permissible given their visa, and to only engage in those activities. That's no different from everyone's general responsibility to abide by the law.

A US visa is simply permission to present yourself at a port of entry for admission, at which time you may questioned further by border control, and in rare cases denied entry.

Most B visas are valid for multiple entries over 10 years. The fact that you wrote a letter and brought it to your original visa interview (which may have been years ago, and likely wasn't even looked at by the officer, who in a busy consulate has less than 2 minutes to complete your interview) does not mean the US government has affirmatively granted you permisison to do everything on that letter.

> and in rare cases denied entry.

I think getting taken away in chains and imprisoned is significantly worse than getting denied entry? I understand you're not saying the raid was conducted properly, but you're consistently downplaying the part that did the damage.

Inconsistent policy resulting in unpredictable denial of entry is bad, but a typical working professional may tolerate that risk. Inconsistent policy resulting in arrest at some random point during your stay followed by indefinite detention (how long would that have lasted without the high-level diplomatic response?) is much worse.

Similarly, highly skilled semi-conductor researchers are not h1b. Semi-conductor workers of various sorts might be, though I note they are trying to make a visa specific the semiconductor industry, but high level researchers who design new chips are not restrained to h1b. I was downvoted for noting this fact recently.

People don’t want honest discussion on immigration. It’s not a good faith debate, rather lies and disinformation., and the populace knows that by now.

Immigrants are our biggest job creators founding >50% of our unicorns. We’re pooping on what makes America great. There’s no logic or reasoning anymore though, just hate.

I was not aware of the Hyundai factory workers immigrating to the US. I thought they were brought by Hyundai temporarily and on the wrong visa to help build that factory faster.

Let’s try to keep facts out of this and stick to optics, emotional appeals and whataboutism.

Unfortunately a lot of people in the US voted for this. They want to see people who are "other" treated harshly and cruely. Trump is giving them what they want.

I’m not sure this is precisely what people voted for.

It’s not immigrants, it’s unchecked, undocumented, unvetted immigration that most people (including a majority of immigrants) are opposed to.

Do you feel that the arrests at the Hyundai plant effectively countered unchecked, unvetted immigration?

Perhaps, but a lot of the recent immigration enforcement pushes haven't been about fully undocumented immigrants.

I think rhetoric around immigration is functionally a Motte and Bailey game. Many of our most productive immigrants play visa games, overstaying, working on non-working visas, etc. in fact it takes a sort of grit, daring, and entrepreneurship to play fast and loose with bloated inefficient government regulation (such as our immigration system). It is obviously easy to declare “well, my intentions were to always target just the worst ideal of immigrant” while ignoring the reality of how much immigrants— yes, even the unchecked, undocumented, unvetted ones— benefit the country as a whole…

I think we should deal in facts. We can for each immigrant estimate a net value to the nation in terms of taxes paid vs services received. Maybe they get food stamps that cost 80k but pay 90k over their lifetime here in taxes. That’s great, let them come in!

But, if you do this, you will quickly be forced to admit that many of these quasi-legal immigrants (undocumented workers?) pay in very little while drawing out much more in healthcare, education, criminal justice and other services. For any nation that can become unsustainable. At least that’s the numerate take. There’s an important “feels” take on this too. We shouldn’t just discard the “bad vibes” but should consider it alongside actual data.

We cannot for each immigrant do this estimation; that’s further bloating an already bloated visa and immigration system. You’d have legal appeals to under-estimations, etc etc. sounds like a nightmare. This is on top of economic studies that already exist that in aggregate immigrants have a good number of benefits to the economy, even when they initially need more resources invested. If you want actual data, the data is there.

No citations?

“ Therefore, despite legal restrictions on benefits for legal immigrants and outright bans for unlawful immigrants, the large difference in taxes paid between native-born Americans and immigrants without high school diplomas, even those of a very young age, results in a net fiscal cost—i.e., every additional immigrant aged 18–24 without a high school diploma is expected to worsen the fiscal outlook of the United States”

https://manhattan.institute/article/the-lifetime-fiscal-impa...

Plenty to pick apart about that research institute, but the author even acknowledges major analytical flaws before arriving at their shaky conclusion:

>This report treats immigrants as individuals in order to avoid treating households of married native-born and immigrant residents as half-immigrant and half-native [...] The economics literature is divided on this matter, partially because the U.S. tax unit is households, not individuals.

You should find better citations tbh.

Some polls state otherwise, with many pointing to disillusionment with the methods and likely incarceration and deportation of immigrants that were potentially targeted improperly by the administration as a way to appear tough on immigration to achieve their goals. The net-net of these actions will leave the economy weaker and cause a net loss of population earlier than expected according to the CBO.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...

https://www.axios.com/2025/09/10/trump-ice-big-beautiful-bil...

https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...

Well, that's not what we have today. ICE making so many arrests at immigration court for people who showed up after they pressure the judges to dismiss the case. People with papers, married parents, and people who have been here decades are being grabbed because they are easy to get for the current administration.

That was the PR line used to trick immigrants into initially supporting the cause, it's become pretty obvious with the sheer glee on social media over all immigrants being harassed and open questioning of the immigration status of anyone they don't like (see: NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani), that it's actually just about not liking anyone who doesn't look like themselves.

If it were this, we'd be doing everything possible to make the process of legal immigration less capricious. Instead we're rounding up anyone who looks foreign or speaks with an accent, ignoring even if they're here legally or following the process.

At least be honest with yourself about what's happening in front of your eyes.

Straw man fallacy. No one is deporting legal immigrant founders. The White House just hosted two dozen of them for dinner - more than half of those in attendance were Indian or Asian.

Sure, as soon as you have become wildly successful and critical to the business interests of the US, we can overlook everything that came before that moment.

What are people in South Korea thinking of this? Can’t imagine seeing citizens of my country getting hauled away in chains.

Probably "if I work in a foreign country I should probably have the proper work visa". Though, I blame management not the workers - I suspect many were not aware.

And for the downvoters, try going and working in a foreign country without the proper paperwork and see how it pans out (and how the locals feel about it)...

Here's an AI overview of working illegally in SK btw:

> Working illegally in South Korea can result in deportation, a fine of up to 30 million KRW (approximately US$22,000), and a ban on re-entry for up to five years. Employers who hire illegal foreign workers also face significant penalties, including fines of up to 20 million KRW (around US$15,000) and/or imprisonment.

I bet they’re thinking more “so you blackmailed us into investing in you, and you arrest our people who are there making that investment happen”

I cannot honestly believe that you think any group of people on earth would look at this situation and then think that they should have just followed the rules better.

The South Korean government is already saying that the US needs to fix its visa program if it wants the investment[1]

[1] https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_internatio...

Any rational group of people would look and say "they should follow the local laws". And one that practically all civilized countries have, including SK. And yeah, the visa program is problematic - but that is not a green light for breaking the law.

Any rational group of people would look at the government demanding investment but not making the process the same government administers for visas viable for the time frames the government is demanding, and be pissed at the government in question.

This wasn’t in a vacuum done solely for Hyundais profit. The government that did this raid is currently threatening every other country that doesn’t invest in the US _now_ with tariffs and sanctions.

I’m actually trying to understand your point here because what you’re describing to me seems as crazy as a seeing a mugger be pissed that the muggee wasn’t polite enough during the encounter

Where would there be rational thought in seeing people you feel some kinship to being chained up and paraded in front of the world by other people you feel less kinship to? This is the kind of thing that sparks wars and riots.

They were. Other news reports indicated that some tried to hide in sewer ponds.

Some of the workers were on tourist visas.

It's very disappointing. I just bought an Ioniq 9 and it's a great car. I'm really bothered, at both sides, (US and Hundai/LG), for letting the situation get like this.

Hyundai and management (both sides) should have to pay some large fines for sure. I bet some locals were in on it, too.

> Probably "if I work in a foreign country I should probably have the proper work visa"

Which one would that be in this case?

South Korea outraged at 300 workers treated as ‘prisoners of war’ in US raid

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/sep/12/s...

I would think it unrealistic for a country to make a foreign investment of magnitude that doesn’t favour their citizens. The government wont survive long if its people think it’s just giving lots of money to foreigners.

Related thread from a few hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45219388

I mean, Hyundai did play it fast and loose with B1/2 visas and the VWP [0] - which are NOT meant to be used for construction.

If HN detests H1B abuse by consultancies like TCS, then calling out B1/2 and VWP visa abuse by Korean manufacturing firms should be acceptable as well, otherwise it's just white collar hypocrisy.

This factory has had multiple deaths in the past two years due to labor abuse and shoddy safety standards [1][2][3], but kept getting pushed back by political pressure. Given the size of the raid, someone at OSHA most likely gave an "anonymous" tip [4].

91 ambulance calls were made at this factory site over 20 months [5] - well above the average for similar sites [6].

TSMC attempted something similar when spinning up the Chandler fab, but the Biden admin stuck to their guns and pushed back on TSMC.

[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...

[1] - https://www.kherkhergarcia.com/fatal-forklift-accident-batte...

[2] - https://labornotes.org/2025/09/georgia-battery-plant-raid-sp...

[3] - https://www.spaglaw.com/blog/2025/05/worker-killed-by-fallin...

[4] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-...

[5] - https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/local/2025/03/15/peop...

[6] - https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/06/construction-deaths-injurie...

I don't think "HN" detests anything. Some commenters might, though.

Having masked men with guns and body armor shackle and kidnap workers is not 'calling out visa abuse'.

The Korean government does the exact same thing as ICE, and continues to ignore the Korean constitutional court's ruling on indefinite detention [0][1][2], and immigrant abuse is even worse in Korea than the US [3]

[0] - https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/ngos-urge-un-human-ri...

[1] - https://www.newskorea.ne.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=7205

[2] - https://www.banmuang.co.th/mobile/news/region/424336

[3] - https://www.bbc.com/thai/articles/ckklk4w9w3po

I'll be first to admit that Koreans aren't great at how we treat our immigrant workers, so if you think that's some kind of gotcha, it really isn't.

Yes, the Korean government (regrettably) mistreats workers frequently, but there are domestic organizations inside Korea (such as National Human Rights Commission, which is a part of the government) which frequently point out these issues, and steps are taken to improve situations, though obviously it's not as fast as it should be.

I'm not going to talk about morality because I don't think there's a lot to argue about: hopefully we can all agree that immigrant workers have human rights whether they're here legally or not. I'm talking about practicality.

What kind of idiot invites a multinational corporation to build a factory in its own hometown, and then arrest workers when they show up to build it? Don't tell me that the law should be fair: there's nothing this US government does that shows any semblance of fairness, so we can count that explanation out. The simple truth is, the US government had a ton of other ways to resolve the visa issue. Hell, they could simply have said "You guys have the wrong visa, get out, you have three days." But they did the most over-the-top, comic-villain stuff to "resolve" this problem, there's nothing "law should be equal" about it, and we're left with one burning question:

So does the US want this factory built or not?

> if you think that's some kind of gotcha, it really isn't

It's not supposed to be a gotcha. It's supposed to be "너희 중에 죄 없는 자가 먼저 돌로 치라"

If Korean SPUs can treat Mongolian, Thai, Viet (my SO is Viet and has family who are "trainees"), Nepali, Indonesian, Pinoy, and other migrant workers that way, it is a bit of schadenfreude which I hope will be used to Korean society to better treat migrants.

> What kind of idiot invites a multinational corporation to build a factory in its own hometown, and then arrest workers when they show up to build it

Why couldn't Hyundai and LG file an H-2B [0]? That's the correct visa for migrant construction and manufacturing workers. Abusing the B1/2 and VWP program is not the right way to do this and frankly, is extremely amateur and shows a sense of disdain for our laws.

The European and Japanese companies like VW Group, Stellantis, and Toyota haven't had the same history of visa abuse that Hyundai Group and LG Group have had in the US.

If they can stand up EV and battery factories without the same persistent abuse and flouting of OSHA regulations, why can't Hyundai Group and LG Group?

> So does the US want this factory built or not

I am a big booster for US-SK relations, but we want your chaebols to follow our labor laws if you want to build here.

I've worked closely with the Korean policymakers, and had good friends who worked closely on the Biden era deal to help bring Korean FDI into battery tech and shipbuilding (my thesis advisor from undergrad helped act as a mutual negotiator for the US and SK), and even gave some advice to 박영선 on her semiconductor strategy, so I absolutely want the relationship to succeed, but we are not Vietnam or India where you can demand special privileges or flout labor laws due to FDI.

The Japanese and Taiwanese conglomerates comply with US labor laws, as has Samsung and SK Hynix. It's only Hyundai Group and LG Group that has had a persistent history of labor abuse in the US.

By every standard, we should have banned and sanctioned Hyundai Group after their persistent child labor scandals in Alabama [1], but under political pressure we let them remain because of HD현대중공업

[0] - https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...

Well put.

You can't complain about it in your industry and get mad when people do it about theirs...

I can assure you, if OSHA raided Hyundai's plant and even arrested managers for unsafe practices, the majority of Koreans would've been like "Yeah fuck Hyundai, serves them right, go America!"

But that's not what happened. And the message seems pretty clear: don't come to the US to work, unless you fancy being treated like a busted drug dealer.

You can't do that and then claim it was about workplace safety. Well, I mean, I guess you can, but the factory workers and investors aren't going to believe you.

Koreans know about work visa rules and immigration status. ADOR reported Hanni as an illegal immigrant when they were having contract disputes with New Jeans due to the whole Min Hee Jin fiasco.

I realize that's kinda dense, but you can google it up yourself. Koreans well understand this type of thing.

Koreans also have the concept of punishment being proportional to offense. You tell Koreans an illegal immigrant worker in Korea was rounded up in chains and stuck in places where they have to take a dump in front of others, at least half of Koreans would say "What the fuck? We are supposed to be better than that!"

Now tell them it wasn't just an ordinary illegal immigrant worker, but a group of, let's say, BMW employees from Germany, building a new car factory in (some Korean city), but apparently they had the wrong visa.

Koreans would say "Have we completely lost our goddamn mind?"

> if OSHA raided Hyundai's plant

They have - multiple times, both under Biden and Trump, as the sources I gave have mentioned. Heck, The Guardian in strongly opposed to the Trump admin and pointed this out too.

> But that's not what happened

That is what happened. The issue was Hyundai would spin up yet another contracting firm when an OSHA incident arose, thus keeping business as usual.

Are there US workers who should have been hired to do this factory-bootstrapping instead? Because that’s what the H1B stuff (and most illegal immigrant-worker debate in general) has been about, and otherwise it’s only superficially similar.

AFAIK H1Bs follow the letter of the law and calls are for reform to make visas stricter / reduce the kinds of visas, which is basically the opposite of what I’m seeing here.

> Are there US workers who should have been hired to do this factory-bootstrapping instead

Yes. Of these companies [0], Hyundai-LG has been the only malcontent

The European and Japanese manufacturers haven't done anything similar - only the Koreans are.

[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/06/tracking-the-ev-battery-fa...

That link only lists some companies that have built factories (or are trying to), and nothing about how they were built.

Not a single one of them have had an immigration raid like Hyundai-LG. It would have been MASSIVE news like the ongoing one if it happened.

Hyundai has been notorious about this for decades in the US, like the ongoing child labor scandal [0]

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...

Like most Americans I’m pro immigration, but I’m also pro enforcing our laws. The company couldn’t follow the law and got caught. End of story.

Im sure there’s an official way to tackle this problem in a less violent manner. Approving of this type of violent operation is a disgraceful and low thing to do.

Yes. But it is possible to agree with the principle and disagree on the specifics.

Right but got caught doing what - trying to build a manufacturing plant that will bring jobs to Americans? It feels like the real loser here is the Americans who would have had jobs after the plant opened. We’re cutting off our nose to spite our face, because people didn’t fill out the right paperwork.

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