South Korean workers return home after days of detention in Georgia following immigration raid

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INCHEON, South Korea (AP) — More than 300 South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in the United States last week were brought back home on a charter plane and reunited with their loved ones on Friday.

They were among about 475 people detained during the Sept. 4 immigration raid at a battery factory under construction on the campus of Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah. Their roundup and the U.S. release of video showing some Korean workers shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists have caused public outrage and a sense of betrayal in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.

After their charter plane, a Boeing 747-8i from Korean Air, landed at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, they appeared in an arrivals hall, with senior officials including presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik clapping hands.

“We feel sorry that we failed to bring them back home much earlier, though we did our best,” Kang later said in televised comments.

Hundreds of journalists gathered at the airport to cover their arrival, with many ordinary citizens shouting “Welcome back!” One protester unfurled a huge banner with a photo of U.S. President Donald Trump and a message criticizing U.S. immigration crackdowns before security officials persuaded him to stop. The South Korean Foreign Ministry asked media to blur the workers’ faces in video and photos at the airport, citing requests by the workers who worried about their privacy.

The plane carried 330 people who were detained in the Georgia raid — 316 of them are South Koreans, including a pregnant woman, and the rest are Chinese, Japanese and Indonesian workers. They had been held at an immigration detention center in Folkston, 285 miles (460 kilometers) southeast of Atlanta.

On the flight back home, Kang said the workers clapped and shouted with joy.

Their release also provided relief to their families and colleagues, who came to the airport.

Hwang In-song, the brother of one worker, told The Associated Press he had been unable to reach his sibling until midnight Thursday, when he finally received a text message from his brother saying he was safe. He said the past week was “the hardest time" for their family.

“We asked him if he was okay health-wise, and he said he was in good health. We didn’t get to talk much because he was about to board the plane,” Hwang said.

Choi Yeon-ju, the 64-year-old mother of another worker, said her son’s detention was “incredibly shocking and stunning.” But she said her son also finally made a short phone call to their family after midnight Thursday.

“He didn’t say much about how he was, just saying he was okay and telling us not to worry too much,” she said.

South Korea said Sunday it had reached an agreement with the U.S. for the Korean workers’ releases.

The South Korean government had pushed to bring them back home on Thursday, but said the plan was shelved due to a reason involving the U.S. side. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry later said Trump had halted the departure process to hear from South Korea on whether the Koreans should be allowed to stay to continue their work and help train U.S. workers or should be sent back to South Korea.

South Korean officials said that one South Korean national who has relatives in the U.S. eventually chose to stay in the U.S.

The battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States.

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. But South Korean officials and experts have accused the U.S. of failing to act on its long-running request to improve a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers as the U.S. wants South Korea to expand U.S. industrial investments.

In reality, South Korean companies have been mostly relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers who are needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.

In a press conference Thursday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned that South Korean companies will likely hesitate to make further investments in the U.S. unless it improves its visa system.

The raid was the latest in a series of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But many South Koreans were stunned because the raid came about two weeks after a summit between Lee and Trump, and a little more than a month after South Korea’s announcement of a $350 billion investment plan in the U.S. in return for a lowered U.S. tariff rate.

Earlier this week, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun traveled to Washington to meet U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. After meeting Rubio on Wednesday, Cho said he “conveyed the shock in Korea over the public arrest of our workers who had come to support U.S. manufacturing.”

Cho also said U.S. officials had agreed to allow the workers detained in Georgia to later return to finish their work at the site. He added the two countries agreed to set up a bilateral working group to create a new visa category to make it easier for South Korean companies to send their employees to work in the U.S.

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Hyung-jin Kim reported from Seoul.