SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun has called for the U.S. Congress to support a new visa for Korean businesses, the ministry said on Friday, as hundreds of Korean workers arrested during a massive immigration raid are heading home.
During his meetings with U.S. senators in Washington, Cho reiterated concerns among South Koreans over the arrests of Korean professionals that participated in investment projects in the U.S., the ministry said in a statement.
A plane carrying more than 300 workers from South Korea who were detained during the raid at a Hyundai battery factory in Georgia last week left the United States, bound for South Korea.
After being held for a week by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the South Korean workers have been released and flown from Atlanta.
The raid that sent shockwaves across South Korea has threatened to destabilise ties at a time when both countries are seeking to finalise a trade deal, and to scare off South Korean investment in the United States that U.S. President Donald Trump has been keen to secure.
Following the raid, the battery plant is facing a minimum startup delay of two to three months, Hyundai CEO Jose Munoz said on Thursday.
In the wake of the raid, Washington and Seoul have agreed to discuss establishing a new visa category for South Koreans, Cho has said.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Thursday that hundreds of South Korean workers arrested during the immigration raid had the wrong visas.
“I called up the Koreans, I said, oh, give me a break. Get the right visa and if you’re having problems getting the right visa, call me,” Lutnick said in an interview with Axios.
South Korean companies have complained for years that they have struggled to obtain short-term work visas for specialists needed at their high-tech U.S. plants, and had come to rely on a grey zone of looser interpretation of visa rules under previous U.S. administrations.
“Minister Cho emphasized that fundamental preventative measures are essential to ensure that our workforce is not subjected to unfair treatment in order to fulfil our companies’ investment commitments to the United States,” the ministry said in a statement.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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