Having masked men with guns and body armor shackle and kidnap workers is not 'calling out visa abuse'.

The Korean government does the exact same thing as ICE, and continues to ignore the Korean constitutional court's ruling on indefinite detention [0][1][2], and immigrant abuse is even worse in Korea than the US [3]

[0] - https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/ngos-urge-un-human-ri...

[1] - https://www.newskorea.ne.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=7205

[2] - https://www.banmuang.co.th/mobile/news/region/424336

[3] - https://www.bbc.com/thai/articles/ckklk4w9w3po

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yongjik 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'll be first to admit that Koreans aren't great at how we treat our immigrant workers, so if you think that's some kind of gotcha, it really isn't.

Yes, the Korean government (regrettably) mistreats workers frequently, but there are domestic organizations inside Korea (such as National Human Rights Commission, which is a part of the government) which frequently point out these issues, and steps are taken to improve situations, though obviously it's not as fast as it should be.

I'm not going to talk about morality because I don't think there's a lot to argue about: hopefully we can all agree that immigrant workers have human rights whether they're here legally or not. I'm talking about practicality.

What kind of idiot invites a multinational corporation to build a factory in its own hometown, and then arrest workers when they show up to build it? Don't tell me that the law should be fair: there's nothing this US government does that shows any semblance of fairness, so we can count that explanation out. The simple truth is, the US government had a ton of other ways to resolve the visa issue. Hell, they could simply have said "You guys have the wrong visa, get out, you have three days." But they did the most over-the-top, comic-villain stuff to "resolve" this problem, there's nothing "law should be equal" about it, and we're left with one burning question:

So does the US want this factory built or not?

	▲	alephnerd 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> if you think that's some kind of gotcha, it really isn't It's not supposed to be a gotcha. It's supposed to be "너희 중에 죄 없는 자가 먼저 돌로 치라" If Korean SPUs can treat Mongolian, Thai, Viet (my SO is Viet and has family who are "trainees"), Nepali, Indonesian, Pinoy, and other migrant workers that way, it is a bit of schadenfreude which I hope will be used to Korean society to better treat migrants. > What kind of idiot invites a multinational corporation to build a factory in its own hometown, and then arrest workers when they show up to build it Why couldn't Hyundai and LG file an H-2B [0]? That's the correct visa for migrant construction and manufacturing workers. Abusing the B1/2 and VWP program is not the right way to do this and frankly, is extremely amateur and shows a sense of disdain for our laws. The European and Japanese companies like VW Group, Stellantis, and Toyota haven't had the same history of visa abuse that Hyundai Group and LG Group have had in the US. If they can stand up EV and battery factories without the same persistent abuse and flouting of OSHA regulations, why can't Hyundai Group and LG Group? > So does the US want this factory built or not I am a big booster for US-SK relations, but we want your chaebols to follow our labor laws if you want to build here. I've worked closely with the Korean policymakers, and had good friends who worked closely on the Biden era deal to help bring Korean FDI into battery tech and shipbuilding (my thesis advisor from undergrad helped act as a mutual negotiator for the US and SK), and even gave some advice to 박영선 on her semiconductor strategy, so I absolutely want the relationship to succeed, but we are not Vietnam or India where you can demand special privileges or flout labor laws due to FDI. The Japanese and Taiwanese conglomerates comply with US labor laws, as has Samsung and SK Hynix. It's only Hyundai Group and LG Group that has had a persistent history of labor abuse in the US. By every standard, we should have banned and sanctioned Hyundai Group after their persistent child labor scandals in Alabama [1], but under political pressure we let them remain because of HD현대중공업 [0] - https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...

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emorning4 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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