At least some of them were not on the correct visas, and it's possible some may have overstayed.
The most egregious violation was that they were using Korean contractors for construction and there is no visa for that.
Also if you are going on a business trip, your company organises your visa for you. You cant really refuse, it's part of your job. So I feel quite sorry for these workers becuase they've been caught in the crossfire.
I happen to know someone well who works for a Korean Conglomerate building industrial/car batteries in the US.
When you do construction work, or operate the production line it has to be done by American Labour.
The visas they have only cover setup, repair and education of the production line.
At that LG/Hyundai factory they were using Korean contractors for construction. So there was some breaking of the terms of the visa for at least some of the people.
However, ICE didn't need to arrest everyone. All they needed to do was send a warning. These companies don't want the trouble, they would comply.
Now you have many Koreans very upset. And people in my friends company are now scared to go to America even though they are management.
It's not good for anyone, it's just so short sighted!
BBC | London | hybrid-remote | Elixir | Mid and Senior Software Engineers
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