ATLANTA (AP) — Buses carrying workers from South Korea who were detained last week in an immigration raid at a battery factory were traveling Thursday from a detention center in southeast Georgia to Atlanta, where a charter plane was waiting to take them home.
More than 300 Koreans were among about 475 workers detained during last week’s raid at the battery factory under construction on the campus of Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah. South Korea’s foreign ministry has said that a Korean Air Boeing 747-8i that arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday will depart at noon Thursday with the workers on board.
The workers had been held at an immigration detention center in Folkston, 285 miles (460 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that U.S. authorities have released the 330 detainees — 316 of them Koreans — who were being transported by bus to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, where they will board a charter flight scheduled to arrive in South Korea on Friday afternoon. The group also includes 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals, and one Indonesian.
South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung called for improvements to the United States’ visa system, indicating that Korean companies will likely hesitate to invest in the U.S. until such changes are made.
South Korean officials have been in negotiations with the U.S. to facilitate voluntary departures for those workers instead of deportations. The latter could prevent these individuals from returning to the U.S. for up to ten years. During a visit to Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun expressed concerns about the impact of the public disclosure of the video showing the arrests of workers, leading to “big pains and shocks” for the individuals and their families.
Cho also urged for workers to be allowed to leave without handcuffs and ensuring they will not face problems regarding future reentry into the U.S., as stated by the ministry.
