Arrest of illegal workers that is
The best I could find was a suggestion that their visa waivers were in fact correct for the purpose, except for the fact that their companies were using visa waivers over and over again. Or maybe the workers were? I'm not sure.
>U.S. authorities said some of the detained Korean workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working.
From PBS, a source with a well known editorial stance against the current administration.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/south-korean-workers-retu...
>Like many of the Koreans who were working there, advocates and lawyers representing the non-Korean workers caught up in the raid say that some who were detained had legal authorization to work in the United States.
LA Times, similar
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-09-14/famili...
With any of these contentious partisan issues it is important to be wary of cherry picking. Typically events are selectively reported to fit a given partisan agenda.
It would be extreme to believe that entire groups are being arbitrarily detained and deported. Similarly, it isn't unreasonable to expect mistakes to be made. The reasonable thing to do with extreme claims such as the ones made in this thread is to do a simple Google search before engaging in partisan flames. It has become almost impossible to have a reasonable discussion here on any topic which may tangentially involve Trump.
There is one side that makes it impossible. Let's not confuse that.
I don't generally favor Trump's policies or the opposition's. Yet it is impossible to have a discussion here without providing explicit disclaimers. Even with those disclaimers, we're constantly brigaded with red-herrings, non-sequiturs and ridiculous claims tilting at what is incorrectly perceived as Trump support.
It is difficult to even criticize Trump's policies, unless the criticism is one of the curated forms prescribed by the outrage-o-sphere.
Are you serious?
But as far as I can tell now, there's not any really clear definition of what counts as work under those visa (waivers), and the ambiguity was tolerated by all parties. So, in effect, the only reasoning is (like always) "this is illegal because we say so".
Thanks again for the info.
What, precisely, does this mean? I don't think it means "crossed from Mexico or arrived on a small boat". I think it might actually mean "at the border interview, they said the purpose of their visit to the facility was 'business meetings' rather than 'work'", and the legality hinges on the precise knife edge of the W word.
It would be really, really useful to clarify exactly what the rules are for someone entering the US under a visa waiver for business purposes are, because I don't want to see my co-workers thrown in a gulag.
It's pretty obvious and not a real point of contention. Being honest about this does not support the raid, and acting as if it does helps nobody and only hurts.
[0] https://www.teamblind.com/kr/post/%ED%98%84%EC%B0%A8-%EC%97%...
If that’s not illegal, perhaps the legal system needs revamping. And blaming the workers in a situation like that is immoral scapegoating, pure and simple. It’s very on-brand for the US conception of labor rights, though.
Advising people to commit visa fraud might well be illegal under US law, but given that it all happened in SK, would SK be interested in extraditing them? And would the US taxpayer support spending what that costs?
Knowingly hiring visa fraudsters is probably illegal, but proving intent would be difficult. And if you lower the burden of proof too far then companies will find any excuse to not hire non-white people, which probably isn't what you want.
The ESTA application emphasizes that it's personal and the conditions you have to comply with. I think that's well and good - if anything I think it would be better to scrap the H1-B system of tying people's work visas to specific jobs, that's a big part of what leads to immigration suppressing wages.
https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-leads-multi-agency-ope...
Summary: https://www.hooyou.com/b1-visa/b1-activities.html
I myself once worked for a large German company at a large US software company, porting code to my company's platform. After a few flights back home to Germany and back immigration took me into the backroom, and I described in detail what I did. They stamped my passport and let me in for another 6 months of that work. I did that for a year before switching to another visa. It also worked out because I never even tried the slightest evasion and gave them everything I got, it's not like I cared, if I had been sent back, so what, I had no desire to immigrate. I'm sure under the exact same circumstances somebody giving them a worse impression of hiding something might not have been approved. But in any case, it's definitely legal, you CAN do some kinds of actual work on just a B1, even for an entire year.
It was legal, because I still was 100% employed and paid in Germany, and the job could not be done otherwise, the US company would not send us their source code.
Similarly, in the context of the Korean raid.
One other important point you neglect is that from what I read the legality of the activities were never even questioned to begin with! They simply arrested everyone. They did not know what they wer4e doing, they just needed the arrest numbers because ICE is under pressure themselves. They did not even have any interpreters. That makes any argument about the legality useless, since it didn't even matter for the arrests.
It does not matter that you quoted the ICE, not these days with all the lies, and since they never checked the people they arrested if they actually violated anything to begin with, that quote is useless. There is enough background information available about how that raid went off. They did not check before taking every single one of those people away.
And
> "People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S."
is just plain wrong (for B1, but also ESTA -- https://www.nnuimmigration.com/esta-business/ "Incidental business activity"), no matter whom you quote!
Your attempt to dismiss it based on me providing additional proof in form of an immigration-encounter directly countering your assertion is noted, but telling.
In addition, it should never come to having to go to the courts in the first place!! Taking away likely lawfully acting people in handcuffs to a very uncomfortable stay in ICE custody already causes severe damage, no court can undo that!
The only reason they can get away with it for the moment is because South Korea needs the military cooperation because of increasing threats at home.
But these methods look more like those of the mafia than that of a civilized state.
I'm saying that while not even minding one bit that/if the US now acts against illegal immigration, I never understood why they just let it happen for decades. I understand certain businesses did well with very low-cost labor that they could easily control and exploit due to the illegal status of the workers. The problem is that they now go far beyond that, because of the administrations desire for numbers and headlines, and pictures.
And if you have to rely on getting your rights through the courts you already lost - the system is expensive, time-consuming, and slow. Getting exonerated later after you were dragged away and put into prison clothing does not undo the damage! Having to go to court is additional punishment for normal people.