Buses carrying workers from South Korea who were detained last week in an immigration raid at a battery factory under construction in Georgia were traveling Thursday from a southeast Georgia detention center to Atlanta, where a charter plane was waiting to take them home.
U.S. authorities had detained about 475 workers during the raid at a factory on the campus of Hyundai’s auto plant west of Savannah. South Korea’s foreign ministry said 330 detainees — including 316 Koreans, 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian — were released from an immigration detention center in Folkston and were being driven to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to board a charter flight scheduled to depart for South Korea on Thursday and arrive Friday afternoon.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said a Korean Air Boeing 747-8i that arrived in Atlanta Wednesday would carry the workers back to South Korea. Ministry officials had been negotiating with U.S. authorities to secure "voluntary" departures for the workers rather than formal deportations, which could render them ineligible to return to the United States for up to 10 years.
Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, visiting Washington this week, met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and described the impact on the detained workers, saying they were left with "big pains and shocks" after video of their arrests was publicly disclosed, the ministry said in a statement. Cho urged U.S. officials to help the workers leave as soon as possible without being handcuffed and to ensure they do not face difficulties when seeking future reentry to the United States.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called Thursday for improvements to the U.S. visa system, saying that Korean companies may hesitate to make new investments in the United States until the issues prompting the detentions are addressed.
U.S. and South Korean officials have offered differing characterizations of the case as they work to resolve the status of those detained. The raid last week at the battery plant construction site, part of the supply chain for electric vehicle production, drew attention because of the number of foreign nationals among those held and because video of the arrests circulated widely.
The detainees were initially held at the Folkston detention facility, located about 285 miles (460 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta. Local and federal authorities carried out the enforcement action amid ongoing inquiries into immigration status and employment practices at facilities connected to the rapidly expanding electric vehicle manufacturing sector in the region.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said it would continue to push for voluntary departures to avoid formal deportation records and to seek assurances that the returned workers would not face obstacles if they later sought to travel to the United States. The ministry emphasized efforts to ensure the workers’ humane treatment during release and transport.
The charter flight and the repatriation of the group follow several days of diplomatic engagement between Seoul and Washington as both governments sought to balance enforcement of U.S. immigration laws with concerns raised by the South Korean government over the treatment and future mobility of its citizens.
U.S. authorities did not immediately provide further comment Thursday on the release arrangements or the details of the enforcement action. Hyundai has said the facility under construction is part of its manufacturing expansion in Georgia, where automakers and suppliers have recently established large campuses to meet growing demand for electric vehicles.
The returning workers were expected to arrive in South Korea on Friday afternoon, according to the foreign ministry, concluding a week of detentions that had attracted attention in both countries and prompted diplomatic talks at senior levels.