President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea said on Thursday that if Washington does not ease visa requirements for workers from his country, its businesses would hesitate to build new factories there, his strongest warning since a U.S. immigration raid in Georgia rattled South Korea.
Mr. Lee’s comments came as South Korea sent a chartered plane to repatriate hundreds of its workers who were detained last week by U.S. immigration officials at an electric vehicle battery plant under construction. A Korean Air flight carrying 316 South Korean workers is scheduled to leave Atlanta around noon on Thursday, Mr. Lee said. It is expected to land at Incheon International Airport outside Seoul on Friday afternoon local time.
South Korean businesses investing in the United States were “flummoxed” by the raid of the Hyundai-LG plant in Ellabell, Ga., Mr. Lee said during a news conference in Seoul on Thursday. The detained South Koreans “were there not as long-term or permanent workers but as technicians who helped install facilities and equipment,” he said.
These skilled workers were needed to build the plant and get it operational, he said. “But you can’t find them in the United States. Nor does it give visas for them to stay and work.”
Many foreign businesses have long circumvented the problem by dispatching workers on more easily available short-term business visas or under a visa waiver program.
But last week’s immigration raid underlined the risks of that approach. U.S. immigration officials said that the South Koreans working at the Hyundai-LG plant were doing so illegally, undermining the chances of American citizens to find jobs.
The raid could have far-reaching diplomatic consequences.
In a trade deal announced in late July, South Korea agreed to put together a $350 billion investment package in return for lowering U.S. tariffs on its exports to 15 percent, from the 25 percent. With both sides were still haggling over the details of the deal, South Korean officials insisted that the United States should resolve the visa issue before investments could proceed.
If the United States does not help resolve the visa problem and continue to crack down on other South Korean workers, “it can seriously affect” South Korean businesses’ plans for future direct investments there, Mr. Lee said.
“As things stand now, our businesses will hesitate to make direct investments in the United States.”
Mr. Lee said the raid also exposed cultural differences between the two allies, noting that South Koreans think nothing of Americans arriving in their country on tourist visas and finding jobs teaching English. But the U.S. immigration authorities were expelling those violating the terms of their visas in “rather violent manners,” he said.
Seoul officials had earlier said that the plane carrying the South Korean workers would leave Atlanta on Wednesday. But that plan was suddenly put on hold when President Trump told his government to consider allowing the South Korean workers to stay and help finish the factory and train new workers, they said.
All but one of the 317 detained South Korean workers planned to return home to rest but may consider returning to the construction site later, they said. One worker chose to stay in the United States with his family members, who were green card holders, the officials said. Also on board the Korean Air flight were 14 other foreign workers, including 10 Chinese, three Japanese and one Indonesian, they said.
South Korea’s foreign ministry announced the new timetable for the plane’s departure after its minister, Cho Hyun, met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Wednesday.
Mr. Cho told Mr. Rubio how “shocked and hurt” South Koreans were by the scenes of Korean workers being dragged away in handcuffs and ankle chains. He insisted that no workers should be in handcuffs or chains while they were being transported from the detention center to the airport “because they are not criminals,” the ministry said in a news release.
Mr. Cho also demanded that the workers not face any disadvantages when they try to re-enter the United States in the future, the news release said.
But a statement from Tommy Pigott, a spokesman of the State Department, about the meeting did not comment on South Korean demands. It only quoted Mr. Rubio as saying that the United States welcomes South Korean investments.