'America is not a safe place to work': Koreans describe Georgia raid

SEOUL: ​They thought they were the kind of highly skilled engineers ​who could help fulfill President Donald Trump's goal of reviving American​ manufacturing.

Park Sun-kyu said he had ​built factories that make electric car batteries in Indonesia, Michigan and Ohio. Kim Min-su said he had built or worked in such facilities in Poland, Ohio and Tennessee. Nate Cho, an HVAC guru, said he had helped put up a nuclear power plant in the United Arab Emirates and a Samsung semiconductor factory in Texas.

All three are South Korean citizens, and all of them had gone back to the United States this year. Along with hundreds of their compatriots, they were working at a 2,900-acre complex built by the South Korean company Hyundai in southeastern Georgia to make electric cars. They were finishing up a battery factory at the site, which the state's governor has praised for bringing thousands of new jobs for Georgians.

On the morning of Sept. 4, Park said he was in an office teaching a colleague how to troubleshoot a computerized manufacturing system when a U.S. agent carrying a handgun barged in and shouted: "Everyone outside!"

Kim said he was supervising in a "dry room," where the temperature and moisture were kept at precise levels for machines to produce sample batteries. A commotion broke out in the room as a security manager called to report a raid by armed officers. Outside, the agents moved swiftly, spreading out through the premises.

Cho said he was checking his team's balance sheets in his office when he saw helicopters and armored vehicles outside.

They were soon swept up in what U.S. officials called the largest-ever Homeland Security enforcement operation at a single location. The workers were held in shackles. They were detained for a week in what they described as poor conditions, and accused the U.S. authorities of rights abuses.

The raid was a head-on collision of Trump's immigration and trade policies. And it has deeply unsettled South Korea, a key U.S. ally. Its diplomats haggled with Washington for a week until the country was able to fly the workers home.

Days after ​their repatriation, six returnees interviewed by The New York Times said they were still struggling to process what had happened to them. Park said he is seeing a doctor because he is having trouble sleeping. ​

"My main takeaway is that America is not a safe place to work," Park said. "I don't think I would go there again to work."

A US Disconnect

The United States and South Korea have deep ties, rooted in a decades-long military alliance. That made the raid all the more shocking to many Koreans.

​The returnees said their predicament was the outcome of a mismatch of American desires and actions.

For decades, South Korean companies such as Hyundai have built and operated factories in the United States. Recently, Washington has persuaded South Korea to commit hundreds of billions of dollars to build new factories, using the threat to increase tariffs on South Korean exports as leverage.

But there are not enough skilled workers in the United States to construct the factories at wages that are economically viable for the companies, industry insiders contend. Nor has Washington issued enough work visas for foreigners to do the job. Last week, Trump added another hurdle by imposing huge fees on new H-1B visa applicants.

To address that mismatch, many South Korean companies, like the ones hired by Hyundai and LG to build the battery factory, rotate workers in and out of construction sites. They enter the United States on short-term business or tourist visas, sometimes skirting the law.

U.S. and South Korean authorities have not disclosed the visa details for the 317 Koreans who were arrested Sept. 4. But five of the six engineers the Times interviewed were on six-month B-1 visas, which allow consulting with business associates. One traveled on the 90-day visa-waiver program called the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, which allows travel for business or pleasure. They ​all said they were on business trips since they were being paid by their employers back in South Korea.

"We knew that we were treading a gray zone between legal and illegal," said Park, who avoided physical work involving tools to meet the terms of his B-1 visa. "Our plan was to finish our trip in two to three months and return home and make another trip ​to the U.S. after an interval of two to three months."

The Raid

More than 400 U.S. agents descended on the Ellabell complex that Thursday.

They first sifted out U.S. citizens. From the noncitizens, they screened out people on ESTA, B-1 and B-2, a visa for tourists, ordering them to fill out worksheets that asked for personal information and questions such as whether they entered the United States legally. The form was only in English and Spanish, and workers said the officers did not bring any Korean translators, so English-speaking workers volunteered.

At least one person was forced to leave the country even though he was there legally, the Times reported this month.

Kim, 34, said he didn't worry at first, even when he and his colleagues were ordered to put their belongings in mesh bags. One agent even told him, "I will let you go home," Kim said.

The mood shifted when people on ESTA and B-1 and B-2 visas were served arrest warrants, hauled into buses in handcuffs and chains and taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Folkston, Georgia.

The Korean workers said they are still wondering why they were arrested on the basis of their visas and were not told what laws they were violating.

They wondered why they, who were creating jobs for the local community, were being held.

"We were not there to settle down as permanent workers," said Cho, 55.

Kim said ​the goal of subcontractors like him was to complete​ their task and leave as fast as possible. "If you miss the target date, it means more cost for you because you are not paid for the extra months you work," he said.

Accusations of Abuse

In the detention center, workers said they were divided into five "pods," each holding as many as 80 people. For meals, they were given an apple and ham-and-cheese sandwiches or meat gruel with rice or baked beans. They drank from water fountains or containers. Along one wall, there were shower stalls, urinals and toilets. Only a low wall and low curtain separated those who were using the toilets from the common area.

Since their repatriation, a few dozen workers have started a chat group where they discuss their claims of human rights abuses. They said that the authorities never read them their rights or explained why they were being arrested. With their cellphones confiscated, they could not call their families, employers or lawyers. When they were allowed to use phones at the detention center, they could not make international calls.

They have reported smelly drinking water, moldy mattresses, dusty blankets, freezing air conditioning and officials' tardy response to requests for medical aid.

One worker in the chat accused guards of pulling their eyes sideways in a racist gesture against Asians. "The racial discrimination and sneering -- and how the United States viewed us -- will linger long in my heart," the worker wrote.

South Korea's Foreign Ministry has said it will investigate allegations of human rights abuse. The U.S. Embassy in Seoul did not respond to a request for comment.

The workers said that the U.S. officials who interviewed them individually at the detention center gave them a choice: Agree to voluntarily leave the United States because they violated their terms of admission or stay and fight their cases in court.

Kim said an American officer warned him that legal proceedings could take months. The South Korean government counseled the same. Eventually, all but one of the Koreans agreed to voluntary departure.

Until the last minute, one detail remained unresolved. U.S. officials wanted the workers to be handcuffed for their four-hour bus ride to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, for their trip home. South Korean officials objected. But the workers had grown so sick of the detention center that some protested to visiting South Korean diplomats that they wanted to go home as soon as possible, whether in handcuffs or not.

The South Korean government eventually prevailed, and the workers were not handcuffed. It also said that Washington promised not to disadvantage the workers ​if they tried to reenter the United States​ after the visa dispute was sorted out.​

Not all want to.

But Cho said he would ​have gone back to the factory site straight from the detention center had he been allowed to.

"My pride is not as important as finishing the work I have started," he said.

The battery factory had been expected to be ready by the end of the year and create 400 new jobs. ​It is now delayed by at least a few months.