More than 300 South Korean workers were brought back home on a charter plane and reunited with their loved ones on Friday, a week after being detained in a large-scale U.S. immigration raid at a battery project site in Georgia.
They were among the 475 people detained during the Sept. 4 raid at a battery factory under construction on the campus of Hyundai's sprawling auto plant west of Savannah, Georgia.
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, near 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 earlier, but we did our best," Kang said.
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.
South Korea's Foreign Ministry asked media to blur the workers' faces in videos and photos taken 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.
Families waited anxiously in a multi-level parking lot near the airport terminal. As the elevator doors opened, each group of workers stepped out to hurried embraces from their relatives.
Hwang In-song, the brother of one worker, told The Associated Press (AP) he had been unable to reach his sibling until midnight on 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 on 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, waiting with her daughter-in-law and a grandchild.
South Korea said Sunday it had reached an agreement with the U.S. for the Korean workers' releases.
The South Korean government originally sought 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.
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.
Speaking at the airport, Kim Dong Myung, the chief executive officer of LG Energy Solution, downplayed concerns that the raid would cause major delays to the launch of the Georgia factory, saying disruptions "would be within a level we can manage."
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.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, who traveled to Washington to negotiate the workers' release, said U.S. officials had agreed to allow them to later return to finish their work at the Georgia site. The two countries also 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., according to Cho's ministry.
"We will discuss all measures, including creating a new visa category, establishing a new quota, and various steps to make obtaining a visa easier," Cho told reporters as he returned to South Korea on Friday. He said most of the detained workers had short-term B-1 or B-2 visas and ESTAs.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Thursday 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.
