Hundreds of South Koreans are detained following an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia. But how did they end up in ICE custody?
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How did hundreds of South Korean Hyundai workers end up in immigration enforcement custody
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despite some claims from an attorney that many of them had visas that should have allowed them
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to be in the U.S. legally? The September 4th raid of a Hyundai plant in Georgia ended with
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more than 300 South Korean workers in ICE custody. An attorney representing more than a dozen of
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those workers, says they were brought to America specifically to help build this multi-billion
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dollar investment from Hyundai. These individuals weren't hired to do the work of Americans
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These individuals were brought over from abroad, from their current positions abroad
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to install products and oversee the internal building of the plant that will then create
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jobs for Americans. So these people weren't doing jobs Americans can do
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President Trump said these workers were in the country illegally He also said the U needs arrangements with countries like South Korea to train Americans to do this work Now they could technically train Americans to do this
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but it takes around three to five years to be properly trained before an individual
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will be authorized to engage in this work. So Hyundai could say, great
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we will train your Americans for three to five years, and then we'll bring them over to install the plans
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and then hire the rest of the workers in four years, or we can bring our guys under this visa
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which is perfectly allowed, and it has been around since at least 1990
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and get it done quickly, and then you can hire U.S. workers quickly
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Kock said all his clients were on one of two kinds of visas
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that would allow them to work in the U.S. for a limited amount of time
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There are only a very few kinds of work visas available. H-1B is for professionals
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And that is a lottery that is conducted only once a year. And you have less than 50 far less than 50 chance of winning the lottery H2B has to go through a whole set of legal procedures that can take months to process
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B1, B2, these are tourist slash business visas that are not really typically for working in the United States
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He says that can leave businesses like Hyundai with limited options to bring in their own workers
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In order to build the plant, Hyundai needs specific equipment. I can tell you that that equipment is not made in the United States
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Otherwise, they would buy it from here. There's no reason to pay import taxes and bring people over
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So their only choice, if they wanted to build this plant at the behest of the state of Georgia, for example
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would be to bring in these workers and this equipment from abroad. Reports now say South Korea plans to bring the workers back to their home country
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Ordinarily, you don't have a government intervening saying, we'll bring our citizens home
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So this is kind of extraordinary in certain kinds of ways But it is consistent with the Trump administration stated effort to enforce the law when it comes to workplaces Hyundai has not commented on the raid or what
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happens to the plant. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem echoed Trump's comments about the
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importance of training American workers to do these jobs. I think President Trump's message
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was powerful. His message today that he sent to the world was, listen, our laws will be enforced
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and we're encouraging all companies who want to come to the United States and help us economy
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and employ people that we encourage them to employ U.S. citizens and to bring people to
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our country that want to follow our laws and work here the right way
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Cuck says the workers were following the law. This was and is the correct visa for these individuals to do exactly what they were doing inside the United States
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