South Korea will dispatch a chartered plane to Atlanta as early as Wednesday to return workers who were detained last week during a large immigration raid at a car battery plant in the U.S. state of Georgia, a spokesperson for Korean Air said on Tuesday.
A Korean Air Boeing 747-8i plane with 368 seats will fly from South Korea’s Incheon to Atlanta, according to the spokesperson.
During the U.S. immigration raid, about 300 South Koreans were among 475 people arrested at the site of a $4.3 billion project by Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution to build batteries for electric cars.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is travelling to Washington to negotiate on issues such as seeking assurances that the detained Koreans will be allowed re-entry to the United States.
South Korean officials had kicked off the process of bringing the detained workers back home, a senior diplomatic official told reporters in Georgia after meeting with the workers in custody.
The raid was the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative operations, and sent shockwaves through South Korea, a U.S. ally that has been trying to finalise a trade deal agreed with Washington in July.
It came just 10 days after South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae Myung, met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington and the two pledged closer business ties.
In addition to potentially fraying bilateral ties, the development has shone fresh light on how many foreign firms investing in the U.S. have struggled to find qualified American workers.
Seoul Seeks US Reentry
Seoul stated on Monday that it seeks permission for hundreds of South Korean workers, arrested last week during a major U.S. immigration raid at a car battery project and scheduled to return home soon, to be allowed to re-enter the United States.
Meanwhile, South Korean Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said on Monday that he had heard that some experts had travelled from South Korea to help with a test run of the factory, which was due to begin production in October.
Seoul has expressed its unhappiness about the arrests and the public release of footage showing the operation, which involved armoured vehicles and the shackling of workers.
Trump, who has ramped up deportations nationwide as his administration cracks down on illegal immigrants, said last week he had not been aware of the raid. He called those detained “illegal aliens”.
(With inputs from Reuters)
