Author: GIKorea

The Lee administration is still playing the victim card over the detainment of the South Korean illegal immmigrants and the State Department is playing right into this narrative:

A senior U.S. state department official on Sunday expressed regrets over the recent mass detention of South Korean workers in America and vowed to prevent similar occurrences.

Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of state, visited Seoul for a meeting with South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo.

According to Seoul’s foreign ministry, Landau conveyed his deep regrets over the detention of hundreds of South Korean workers in an immigration crackdown earlier this month at an electric vehicle battery plant construction site for a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution in Bryan County, Georgia. A total of 316 South Korean workers returned home Friday, after being held in a detention center for a week.

Landau also said U.S. President Donald Trump has a keen interest in the matter and ensured that those who have returned home will not face any disadvantages when reentering the United States. The state department official said Washington would try to ensure there would be no further incidents of a similar nature in the future.

Landau proposed working-level talks on issuing proper visas for South Korean workers in the U.S., citing a need to provide institutional support for South Korean corporations’ investments that contribute to the American economy and manufacturing.

In response, Park touched upon inconveniences that South Korean workers faced while in detention and said the general public in South Korea, in addition to the workers themselves, felt deeply shocked by the crackdown.

According to the ministry, Park also strongly urged the U.S. to take practical steps and implement systematic improvements to ease South Korean people’s concerns.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the message Landau should have matched what U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnick recently said that the U.S. wants Korean business, just come in on a proper visa. If you are having problems let us know and we will resolve it. Instead this “regret” wording just feeds into the victim narrative the Lee administration is promoting.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

I can’t argue with anything Lutnick is saying. America wants your business just enter the country the right way because the Trump administration is enforcing immigration laws:

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday that he had told Hyundai Motor Group to get the “right visa” and call him if it has visa problems, as he commented on its workers who were arrested in last week’s immigration raid at a Georgia battery plant construction site.

He made the remarks in an Axios interview, as 316 Korean workers headed back home in the morning following their release from a detention center in Folkston, Georgia, a week after their arrest in the raid at the site run by a joint Hyundai-LG Energy Solution venture in Bryan County near Savannah.

“I called up the Koreans, I said, oh, give me a break. Get the right visa and if you’re having problems getting the right visa, call me. I’ll call (Homeland Security Secretary) Kristi Noem,” he said during his appearance on the “Axios Show.”

“We’ll help you get the right visa, but don’t do it the wrong way. You can’t do things the old way. Donald Trump requires you to do it correctly,” he added.

The secretary said that the Korean workers detained in the raid came to the U.S. on tourist visas, emphasizing that Hyundai should have gotten them the “proper visa.”

“Hyundai is a total grown-up, more than capable of getting them the proper visa,” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The return of the detained Koreans is now complete:

A total of 316 Korean workers who were detained in a recent U.S. immigration crackdown headed back home aboard a chartered plane Thursday, in a voluntary yet bitter departure amid renewed questions in Seoul over U.S. credibility as a reliable ally.

The Korean Air plane carrying them and 14 non-Korean nationals took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta at noon, a week after their arrest in the raid at an electric vehicle battery plant construction site for a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution in Bryan County, Georgia.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but this immigration crackdown is ultimately going to be a good thing for Korean businesses. First of all the U.S. government saying these detained workers will not be disadvantaged from receiving a proper work visa in the future.

Secondly the U.S. government is going to set up a working group to expand employee visas for Korean businesses operating in the U.S. It appears that these businesses have been able to skirt immigration laws for so long there was never an urgency to get the situation fixed. Now due to enforcement there is an urgency to fix the problem which in the long run is good for Korean businesses.

Google Maps may work in the future in Korea:

Google has reaffirmed its willingness to comply with South Korea’s stringent national security protocols as it seeks government approval to export high-precision map data — a highly sensitive issue that has sparked public and political debate in recent months.

At a rare press conference held in Seoul on Tuesday, Cris Turner, vice president of government affairs and public policy at Google, underscored the company’s readiness to accommodate the Korean government’s requirements, including the removal of sensitive geospatial details.

“We’ve been in close communication with the Korean government to understand and address their concerns,” Turner said. “(As part of our commitment,) We will remove latitude and longitude coordinates for places in Korea.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the detained Koreans in Georgia are going to be held a little while longer:

The planned departure of hundreds of Korean workers detained in Georgia during an immigration raid has been delayed, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Wednesday, due to “a cause from the U.S. side.”

It did not explain what the cause was, raising concerns that their detention could be extended.

The ministry said in a message to reporters that the plane’s departure, which was initially planned for 2:30 p.m. Wednesday (local time) from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, was postponed, without stating a new departure time.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

So does this mean 6 in 10 Koreans would not mind 400 people from a foreign country showing up and constructing a building in Seoul on improper visas?:

A majority of Koreans said they were disappointed in the U.S. government following the recent mass detention of Korean workers at a battery plant in Georgia, a poll showed Tuesday.

According to a survey of more than 500 adults recently conducted by Realmeter, 59.2 percent of respondents said they view the immigration crackdown on Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution’s factory site as “excessive” and expressed disappointment with the Donald Trump administration’s actions. Only 30.7 found the measures “understandable and inevitable.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Eighth Army may finally get a long term commander:

The former commander of the Alaska-based 11th Airborne Division has been nominated by President Donald Trump to lead U.S. ground operations in South Korea. Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert was nominated Friday to promotion to lieutenant general and assignment as commander of the Eighth Army, according to a Pentagon news release Friday. The post requires Senate confirmation. Hilbert now serves as the special assistant to the commander of U.S. Army Pacific out of Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.

Stars and Stripes

You can read more at the link.