South Korea investigates the US treatment of workers arrested as the international incident continues

The Trump administration is still dealing with the international consequences caused by its recent arrest and arrest of hundreds of South Korean workers during a raid in a battery plant in Georgia.

After the fierce violent reaction of arrests and detention, in terrible conditions, of more than 300 South Korean workers, President Donald Trump issued a statement in social networks that apparently referred to arrests and they say he did not want to “scare” investment in the United States. A United States diplomat has also expressed “deep regret for the incident”, according The South Korean government.

But the consequences continue.

South Korea is investigating possible human rights abuses experienced by workers once they were put into the custody of the United States immigration and customs application last week, a spokesman for the president of South Korea said on Monday, Lee Jae-Yung. Workers have since returned A Korea on a plane sent to the United States by his government.

“I understand that the government is making a more thorough review with companies to determine if any human rights violation occurred,” said presidential spokesman Kang Yu-Jung at a press conference, The Yonhap news agency reported.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is analyzing whether our demands were adequately addressed, and companies are also carrying out their own reviews, to verify if any measure was insufficient on the Korean side or in the United States.”

South Korean unions have reportedly He asked for an official apology for the raid and the subsequent arrests, and Lee warned the “baffling“The action could cool future investments in the United States.” We are in an era of a new normality in dealing with the United States, “Lee’s head of personnel He said Friday.

Lee also emphasized that the workers arrested were only temporarily in the United States to help install equipment and establish the battery factory, which was part of An Hyundai plant In Ellabell, Georgia.

“It is not that these are long -term workers. When you build an installation or install equipment in a plant, you need technicians, but the United States does not have that workforce and, nevertheless, they will not issue visas so that our people stay and do the job.” Lee said.

The massive arrest of Korean workers is also illuminating the bad treatment of people in the immigration arrest of the United States, often those whose governments of origin do not have enough economic leverage to press the problem with the United States.

On the contrary, the angry response to the raid of South Korea, an important partner of American Asian economic power and American commercial partner, has caused a Trump response of a hat in his hand.

“When foreign companies that are building products, machines and several extremely complex ‘things’ come to the United States with mass investments, I want them to bring their specialty people for a period of time to teach and train our people on how to do these unique and complex products, as they leave our country and return to their land,” Trump “, said in a position on Sunday About social truth.

He added: “I do not want to scare or discourage investment in the United States by external countries or companies. We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to say with pride that we will learn from them, and we will do it better than them in their own ‘game’, at some point in the not very distant future!”

The Trump administration did not answer News themezone’s questions about the raid, including whether the president’s position was asked.

Anthony Wallace through Getty Images

Chained and imprisoned

Some 475 people, including more than 300 South Koreans, were arrested on the raid on September 4 at the Georgia battery plant.

The raid was the application of a single larger site in the Department of National Security History, said Trump administration officials.

Korean workers were largely in the United States under short -term commercial visas or a visa exemption program. The Trump administration claimed that they violated the terms of these states, although the rules around them are confusing and rarely apply with such hardness. At least one person who was arrested had not violated any immigration law, The Guardian and the New York Times reported.

A lawyer who represents some of the workers later said that immigration agents did not know that there were many Korean workers there. “The Koreans were never part of the plan, so they did not even bring a single Korean translator with them,” said the lawyer, Charles Kuck, to MSNBC.

A raid order for the raid lists only four “target people”, all apparently with Hispanic names. The administration has said that any person outside the legal status is eligible to be arrested, detained and deported, without distinction for the people considered public security threats or other priorities, and emphasizing the importance of the so -called “collateral” arrests.

The treatment of Korean workers once they met ICE has presented indignation.

A arrested worker reported agents who pointed to the workers with weapons during the raid, and those arrested were chained in the wrists, waist and ankles. In detention, the workers initially remained in a large and crowded cell, and faced Mohosa bedding, bathrooms that were not private and temperatures so cold that they wrapped in towels to stay hot, Yonhap reported.

According to reports, workers were pressed to sign documents to leave the country voluntarily, although this step could have serious implications if they try to re -enter the United States in the future. A Korean human rights expert observed that the conditions described by the workers did not meet international standards for the treatment of detainees.

However, in particular, such conditions are widespread in the immigration arrest of the United States.

“I hope people understand that the anomaly here are not the conditions, the conditions are very typical, the anomaly is that they put several documented workers from a country of high income in these conditions,” observed the independent journalist Felipe de la Hoz. “This is how people are treated in custody routinely.”

Many people arrested during the raid on September 4 can, in fact, still be in custody.

The workers arrested in the raid who did not return to Korea have not yet been released on bail, said Julia Solórzano, Legal and Policy Director of the Migrant Rights Center, the New York Times on Friday.

“In this incursion, it is remarkable that they seem to have taken many of the workers to detention,” Solórzano told Times. “It makes it very difficult to support people, and create conditions that make workers difficult to just evaluate their immigration options.”

Some central and South American workers arrested in the raid had work permits and were legally present in the United States under the temporary protected state or the deferred action for children’s arrivals, The Times reported, citing lawyers and the migrant group of the group to the southeast.

The Trump administration has attacked and tried to limit both programs. But if those states were current for the workers arrested in question, they should have avoided the arrest, detention and possible deportation procedures of workers.

A state department spokesman refused to comment “on private diplomatic communications” or “department actions with respect to specific cases.” The National Security Department did not respond to a request for comments.