President Lee Jae Myung speaks during a meeting with senior aides and secretaries held at the presidential office in Seoul on July 17, 2025. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, has taken the unusual step of sending personal letters of consolation to more than 300 Korean workers who were swept up in a weeklong immigration raid this fall at a Hyundai–LG joint battery plant in Georgia.
The gesture, announced Monday, is at once empathetic and political—an attempt to steady public outrage at home while signaling to Washington that Seoul expects greater clarity and protections for its citizens working in the United States.
The episode began in early September, when U.S. authorities arrested and detained the workers in what officials described as an investigation into unlawful workplace practices.
The details of that investigation were never fully articulated, and what emerged instead were images that ricocheted across South Korea: workers shackled, handcuffed, and transported as if they were criminals. The men and women were flown home one week later, after hurried negotiations between Seoul and Washington.
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)
The fallout has been profound. The detentions triggered anxiety within South Korea’s business community—much of which has poured billions into U.S. manufacturing—and raised questions about how prepared American agencies are to handle the influx of foreign workers they have encouraged.
A bilateral working group has since been formed to examine visa reforms for Korean business personnel and to prevent similar disruptions to major industrial projects.
In his letter, Lee wrote with unusual emotion for a sitting president. “I cannot imagine how frightening and lonely those moments must have been in a foreign land far away from home,” he said, acknowledging that he had spent nights awake as he monitored the negotiations for their release.
He thanked the workers for “holding onto hope” and extended sympathy to their families waiting anxiously in Korea.
Lee also admitted that the incident forced him to reflect on “the weight of the president’s role and responsibilities,” a rare public expression of vulnerability from a leader whose office is typically defined by procedural reserve. He pledged to mobilize “all diplomatic and institutional resources” to ensure that the rights of Korean citizens are protected abroad and that Korean companies operating in the United States can do so without fear of sudden intervention.
The president added that Seoul is working with Washington to guarantee that none of the workers, despite having been detained, will face any obstacles if they seek to return to the United States.
If the episode revealed anything, it is the fragile balance that now underpins the economic partnership between Seoul and Washington—an alliance built on vast mutual investments and, increasingly, on the movement of ordinary workers whose safety and dignity are becoming a new diplomatic frontier.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
