US reentry guaranteed for Koreans detained in Georgia raid: minister

Washington has pledged that the South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid last week will face no penalties if they seek to reenter the US, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said, after a US official noted they were to be deported under rules that normally restrict reentry.

US President Donald Trump had ordered a temporary halt to the Korean workers’ return to confirm whether Seoul preferred they remain in the US to train American labor or return home, the Foreign Ministry confirmed Thursday.

After the delay, all but one of the 317 South Korean detainees, along with 14 foreign workers, were set to board the chartered flight departing at noon Thursday, Georgia time, a day later than planned. The flight is expected to land around 4 p.m. Friday.

Buses carrying them left the detention facilities at 2:18 a.m., after a week in custody.

The detainees were arrested in the Sept. 4 immigration raid at the construction site of the HL-GA battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution near Savannah, Georgia.

The announcement came after Foreign Minister Cho’s Wednesday meetings with US Secretary of State and White House national security adviser Marco Rubio and White House deputy national security adviser Andy Baker.

“Our nationals who are currently in detention will be able to board a plane and return home tomorrow, and we have once again confirmed (with the US) that no handcuffing will take place in the course of that process,” Cho said Wednesday during a briefing at the South Korean Embassy in Washington.

“We have also received an assurance that these individuals will face no penalties if they come back to the US in the future to enter and work,” Cho told reporters.

Another Foreign Ministry official further explained, on condition of anonymity, that the US would erase any record related to their detention, which could otherwise serve as grounds for disadvantageous measures upon reentry. The official added that Rubio was the one who pledged there would be no penalties for their reentry.

In a rare diplomatic sprint, Cho and First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo boarded planes simultaneously for urgent trips to the US following the unprecedented mass detention of Koreans.

Cho flew to Washington for talks with White House officials, while Park rushed to Atlanta, Georgia — where he had previously served as consul general — to lead on-the-ground operations and fly back to Seoul aboard the chartered flight.

Seoul and Washington also agreed to establish a joint working group to address visa issues and prevent a recurrence of such incidents.

Most of the detained Korean workers held non-immigrant short-term business visas — either B-1 visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization permits — which are typically used for brief business visits.

Korean companies have pointed out that relying on these visas was an inevitable choice, given that the shortage of work visas for Korean workers has been a key obstacle to Korean companies continuing their vast investments in the US.

Cho underscored that Seoul and Washington “will establish a working group between the US State Department and Korea’s Foreign Ministry to swiftly discuss and develop a new form of visa.”

“More importantly, we will create a new visa category in line with our long-term investment in the US so that company personnel can visit and work in the US without inconvenience,” Cho explained.

In a separate press statement, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Baker gave his “active consent” to Cho’s proposal to focus on holding working-group consultations between South Korea and the US to prevent a recurrence of a raid like the Georgia incident.

“(Baker) assessed that this incident has become a meaningful opportunity to resolve the issue and proposed that follow-up measures, including Korea-US consultations, be actively pursued,” the ministry said.

South Koreans detained in what marked the largest-ever single-site raid by the Department of Homeland Security were supposed to return home Thursday on a chartered flight.

However, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that their departure was suddenly delayed due to what US authorities called “circumstances on the US side,” without giving more details.

Amid a lack of information, South Korean media initially attributed the delay to administrative procedures, such as deciding whether the detainees would be handcuffed during transport to the airport.

The unnamed Foreign Ministry official later clarified that Cho confirmed the exact reason during his meeting with Rubio, after Seoul had been notified of the delay only after 10 p.m. Tuesday, without any explanation from US officials.

“Minister Cho learned during his meeting with Secretary Rubio this morning that the so-called ‘US circumstances’ referred to President Trump’s order to temporarily suspend the repatriation process in order to ascertain South Korea’s position on whether the detained Korean nationals — all of whom are skilled workers — should remain in the US to continue working and train American workers, or be sent back to Korea," the official said during Wednesday's same briefing.

"Cho told Rubio that it would be better for them to first return to Korea and then re-enter the US to resume work, given that the workers were deeply shaken up and exhausted. The US side agreed to let them return, respecting our position," the official added.