I’m tired of seeing stories with no real facts and similarly tired of comment sections discussing the issue without them either.
What actually happened here?
I have seen acknowledgements in the Korean press that there may have been some irregularity on the corporate end due to the administrative complexities involved. Given that SK is quite bureaucratic itself, that seems to me like a criticism they would be receptive towards. But the security measures like shackling all detainees and the bad detention conditions are landing with the public there (according to friends of mine as well as this editorial article) as an insult to Korean dignity which is really intolerable, eg leading respectable political figures there to muse openly about whether the time has come for SK to have an independent nuclear deterrent.
I think US policymakers often fail to realize that the US is an outlier among developed countries for the severity and indignity of its law enforcement practices. Most countries grant criminal defendants far more privacy pending conviction, in contrast to the publication of mugshots and home addresses that obtain in many US jurisdictions, and are far less inclined toward the use of physical restraints or harsh detention environments. South Korea in particular associates systematically harsh conditions with the autocratic regime of North Korea so they've been deeply startled to see such conditions inflicted upon their nationals by their main ally.
A similar activity that technically flouts the rules is responding to your work email while on a business trip. Or for software people, reviewing PRs on GitHub. Neither of those activities are business meetings, but both are generally tolerated.
Chesterton's fence is kind of important! The overall problem is that the world has become globalized but immigration policy just hasn't kept up.
None of this is to defend in any way the appalling conditions the workers were subjected to. But also, note that these conditions are not out of the ordinary. People get stuck in immigration detention for years.
B-1/B-2 does allow some work. Specifically setting up complex equipment and also training workers. Here's the CBP manual: 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.
Now the catch is that people on B1/B2 visas have NO recourse if _any_ border official decides that they violate the visa rules. And the rules themselves are really unclear.
If they ignore you like 3 times, maybe escort them to a flight.
In this case the issue seem to be a debate around specifically what types of work these people were permitted to perform on their visas, with the union arguing, in their self-interest, that the work they were doing did not qualify.
They literally don't believe you when you explain that this is false of the law in general, and especially false of immigration law, which is deliberately designed to have tons of ambiguity and discretion in it, to enable selective enforcement and keep guest workers afraid and exploitable in their ambiguous status.
I've never done this, despite having worked abroad on a few occasions. When my visa ran out and I had to apply out of the country, I went home and applied and a few months later went back.
If teenage me had been dragged aside and asked to prove I'm legal to work I have nothing. Where am I staying? Well I have a hotel reservation. OK, and how are you paying? Well here's a photocopy of my English boss' Amex that'll work right?
Everything was fine of course, as far as I know it was entirely legal, I was the foreign employee of a huge US firm, temporarily in the country to train people, by the time I left I had my own Amex and the hotel was paid with that, I was waved through both borders, no problem. But I had no proof of any sort, if you had wanted to detain me and insist you need documentation I had none. Maybe my bosses could have cleared it up? I just assumed it would be fine, and it was.
In 2025 I wouldn't recommend travelling to the US. A friend went, rich white guy with his very normal family, no doubt nothing seemed weird for them but if he'd asked me whether it's a good idea I'd say "No".
This seems less likely, because most places have some form of 'business' visa that's about as easy to get as a personal travel visa (the US's one is under the visa waiver program where available, say). The catch is that the definition of 'business' tends to be restrictive and unclear.
This woman called ICE and they shackled these people up like it was the 1800s again.
Major stories (NYT) have covered at least one person wrongly detained:
> Almost 500 people were detained during a raid of a Georgia battery plant owned by two South Korean manufacturers last week, the largest immigration enforcement operation at one location in the history of the Department of Homeland Security.
> But in at least one instance, officials admitted a worker was employed legally and forced him to leave the country anyway, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/business/economy/hyundai-...
The most egregious violation was that they were using Korean contractors for construction and there is no visa for that.
Also if you are going on a business trip, your company organises your visa for you. You cant really refuse, it's part of your job. So I feel quite sorry for these workers becuase they've been caught in the crossfire.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/hyundai-fact...
[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...
What?
You simply say you're traveling on business, you absolutely do not lie and say you're a tourist.
This case is additionally complicated as some of the construction work was being done by Latino workers who (like many construction workers) may not have had valid immigration paperwork.
In particular, worker training and equipment installation/setup. This seems to be exactly the case there.
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/BusinessVisa%20Pu...
I don't think this greatly changes your general point. It's likely that many of those detained were in fact lawfully present.
But what about assembling and installing the battery presses? Or maybe setting up the electrical connections for them?
It is a genuinely ambiguous area, and I won't be surprised if Korean companies tried to push it a bit too far. This still doesn't excuse the ICE behavior a bit. They could have just revoked the visas and asked employees to leave.
It's also quite clear that the Korean companies were not flying engineers here to save on wages.
The USA calls it B-1.
https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...
(I have no comment on the relevance of this to the article.)
That said, "willful action on the part of the individuals" is likely not the case - this is a large Korean conglomerate, all of them will have been doing what the company told them to do. This is part of why it's such a big deal to Koreans: workers who were doing what they were supposed to do correctly from a social perspective were treated like criminals, which is a major issue culturally.
And the company will probably have understood that the USA understood that for cases where no proper route, or only ambiguous routes, existed, everyone else will be part of cooperatively addressing ambiguity advantageously.
The number of human beings in the West who can discern the difference and use wisdom and intelligence appears to be declining.
Everything is now either black or white.
What does that tell you about Anglo Western Culture?
Some call it hypocrisy - and normally the same people are capable of displaying hypocrisy in other arguments too.
What was the point of making this big spectacle of it
I’ve seen a dozen articles and discussions around this topic - none of which provide any facts, just vitriol such as yours. I genuinely want to hear the actual truth of the story. I’ve never heard of any plate watering stories or anything else. I’m not here making a case. I’m asking for facts I may have missed, facts that TFA lacks.
If the former, there's probably not much information to go on.
But what people are reacting to is the insane treatment of people.
If that's what you are looking for information about, how high standards of proof do you require?