(Seoul) More than 300 of the 475 people arrested on Thursday in the United States in a drums factory for cars are of South Korean nationality, the government of Seoul said on Saturday, expressing its “deep concern”.
“More than 300 would be our nationals,” said South Korean Minister for Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun at an emergency meeting on the subject.
“We are deeply concerned and feel a heavy responsibility on this subject,” continued the minister. Cho Hyun said he was ready to go to Washington if necessary to meet the authorities.
US immigration police announced on Friday that they had led a raid on Thursday in a automotive battery manufacturing plant in South Korean groups Hyundai and LG Energy solution in Ellabelll, in the state of Georgia. The people arrested are suspected of working illegally in the United States.
According to Steven Schrank, an agent of the US Interior Department Investigation Service, the arrest of these 475 people constitutes “the largest operation of the police on the same site in the history of the Investigations Service on internal security”.
On Friday, the South Korean authorities expressed the United States Embassy in Seoul of their “concern” and their “regrets” concerning this case.
“The economic activities of our investors and the legitimate rights and interests of our nationals should not be unjustly injured in the context of the application of American law,” the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lee Jae-Woong said on Friday.
Seoul had not quantified the number of nationals concerned.
But diplomatic personnel has been sent on the spot, with the mission of creating a working group in particular in order to cope with the situation.
About 250 of the 475 people arrested are employees of subcontractors from LG Energy Solution, and mostly South Koreans, the company said on Saturday.
And 47 (46 South Koreans and an Indonesian), are direct LG employees, depending on the company.
Employees’ trips to the United States “will be suspended at the moment, unless absolutely necessary,” said a company spokesperson to AFP.
Hyundai said Friday, said that none of the arrested people was “directly employed” by the group.
South Korea, the fourth economy in Asia, is an important car manufacturer and producer of electronic equipment with many factories in the United States.
In July, Seoul undertook to invest $ 350 billion in US territory following threats to Donald Trump’s customs duties.
He was elected for a second term in November 2024, in particular on the promise to implement the most important program to expulsion from immigrants in the history of his country.
Since then, his government has targeted with the greatest firmness the some eleven million undocumented migrants present in the United States. At the price, according to NGOs, members of civil society and to the United Nations, frequent violations of human rights.
