A South Korean worker who had been detained in Georgia by U.S. immigration authorities meets his family in the parking lot after returning through Terminal 2 of Incheon International Airport on September 12. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When Ji, a 41-year-old technician from South Korea, finally walked into the arrivals hall at Incheon International Airport this week, he was carrying more than a suitcase. He carried a story of humiliation.
“The food was like garbage. We couldn’t eat it,” Ji said, recalling the seven days he spent in a detention facility in Folkston, Georgia, after U.S. immigration authorities raided the battery plant construction site where he worked.
Ji was one of more than 300 South Korean engineers and workers swept up in a surprise operation earlier this month targeting Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution’s joint electric-vehicle battery plant. The detainees returned home on a Korean Air charter flight on Thursday, greeted with flowers, tears and relief — and with searing accounts of what they endured.
A South Korean worker who had been detained in Georgia by U.S. immigration authorities meets his family in the parking lot after returning through Terminal 2 of Incheon International Airport on September 12. (Yonhap)
Shackled Like Prisoners
The workers said the shock began the moment armed officers descended on the construction site. Some recalled agents pointing guns. Many were shackled in chains, their hands and legs bound, before being loaded onto buses.
“It felt like a battlefield,” said one safety manager, who described the sting of humiliation at being treated as a dangerous criminal. “All I could think was, I just want to sit down with my family and eat a good dinner again.”
Cho, a 44-year-old engineer with LG Energy Solution, said he was confined to a small cell with another detainee, a toilet bolted inside the room. “There was no dignity left,” he said. “At first the officers were very harsh, treating us as if we were criminals. Later, their tone changed. It was as if they realized this was not how we should be treated.”
Others remembered the bitter cold. “We asked them to turn up the heat, but it felt like they made it colder on purpose,” said Kim, a 33-year-old contractor for LG CNS. “I don’t think I can go back to America after this.”
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on September 4 (local time) released footage of a raid targeting undocumented workers at the Hyundai Motor Group–LG Energy Solution joint battery plant site in Savannah, Georgia. (Image source: ICE website capture)
Uniforms, Cells and Fear
Inside the Folkston facility, the Koreans were processed like ordinary inmates. Their business attire was replaced with prison uniforms. The meals — often left uneaten — were described as barely edible. “We couldn’t even finish one meal a day,” said Lee, a 49-year-old Hyundai affiliate worker.
The psychological toll was equally heavy. “What was hardest was not knowing when we would get out,” said one man. Another recalled seeing colleagues break down during the first days, when agents insisted on treating them as if they were hardened offenders.
Even children were shaken. At the airport, a middle school boy clutched his father’s arm and said, “I’m just so glad to see you. I want to stay up all night playing games with you.”
View of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Folkston, Georgia, where workers from the Hyundai Motor–LG Energy Solution battery plant construction site are being held following an immigration raid on September 8 (local time). (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Families in Tears
At the arrivals gate in Seoul, the scene was raw. Mothers held flowers, wives broke down in tears, and fathers reassured their families. Cho’s mother handed him a bouquet as his wife sobbed and clung to him. His first words: “I’m healthy. I came back.”
Nearby, relatives embraced one another, relief mixing with anger at how their loved ones had been treated.
Detained workers from the Hyundai–LG battery plant construction site depart the ICE facility in Folkston, Georgia, en route to Atlanta Airport on September 11. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
Diplomatic Shockwaves
The ordeal has unsettled more than just families. Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement showing Koreans shackled and marched into buses sparked outrage in South Korea, where many saw it as a humiliating spectacle.
Seoul dispatched top diplomats to Washington, including Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, who negotiated the workers’ release. The episode has thrown a spotlight on the narrow interpretation of the B-1 business visa used by many South Korean engineers in the United States and raised urgent questions about how to prevent such incidents from recurring.
President Lee Jae Myung warned this week that South Korean firms may hesitate to expand investment in the U.S. unless the visa system is reformed. “Companies cannot help but hesitate if situations like this repeat themselves,” he said.
For many of the workers, though, the memories are far more personal: the chains, the cold, the inedible food, and the feeling of being treated as criminals in a country where they had come to build.
“We were there to work,” Ji said, his voice steady but eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “And yet, for seven days, it felt like we were in prison.”
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
