[3D30497420]

I imagine their argument will be "Well, they should have hired Americans", even if that is completely infeasible.

Then, when these places stay poor, they'll blame foreign governments, Democrats, "bureaucrats in DC", "woke" policies, etc. Rinse and repeat.

[ivan_gammel]

Their argument was Trump personally delaying the departure by one day to ask if anyone wants to stay and train American workers. I.e. they understand they messed up, but don’t want to admit any mistake.

[nerpderp82]

And arrested at gunpoint with helicopters flying overhead. This is only the start.

[ivan_gammel]

Yes. I guess I should have phrased it differently so irony would be more noticeable.

[sysguest]

idk after this fiasco, Hyundai will have a big time trouble finding competitive workers who would want to go to the USA...

I mean, prior to this, just a small possibility of being sent to the US was a big perk (job descriptions often highlighted this in bold fonts) Hence, companies would rotate people to hush complaints ("that guy gets to go to the US more than me!")

now... if being sent could mean "you could be banned from entering/working in US", it's a big no-no

Anyway, this will mean extra costs + less competitive people going to the USA (they should be forced to go, so... it'll probably be people with career dead-ends, whom americans might not want to 'learn from'...)

the only fix to the issue: officially commit huuuuge working visa quota for s.koreans...

[ivan_gammel]

Everyone will adapt the same way as businesses adapted to local specifics in other countries. Russia was wild, China was hard, most of Africa is crazy, but if there are money, entrepreneurial energy will channel towards it. The real losers here are American consumers, because extra risks (or privileged access to market premiums for locals) will be included in price.

[sysguest]

..except no one had to "adapt" -- those workers were supposed to go back after the set-up work is over, and Americans would get the jobs after the set-up work.

this isn't some low-skill burger-flipping workers staying permanently and replacing a whole career of american citizens' jobs...

US just had to turn a blind-eye, wait until those workers are done with the set-up and leave for good

And now... things got ugly too quick -- I doubt even Trump wanted this.

My pet theory is... this is a classic example of an political double-spy (Tori Branum) being "cooperatively passive-aggressive" (if party a shouts for A, get inside party a, and go to the extreme far-end of A to show A is bad -- though in reality, some middle-ground was what party a was initially aiming for)

[FirmwareBurner]

> "Well, they should have hired Americans", even if that is completely infeasible

Who determined it is infeasible and how was it determined? Show me the data and the process that lead to this conclusion. It's a car assembly plant, not a semiconductor fab that requires niche advanced degrees only available in Taiwan.

Surely the required labor can be found across a country of 300 million people, or easily trained from other adjacent fields that have lost workers due to economic driven redundancies or who want to switch careers for whatever reason.

>Then, when these places stay poor, they'll blame foreign governments, Democrats, "bureaucrats in DC"

Why shouldn't they be blamed? They're the ones telling their voters at election times that there'll be a factory opening where they live and then the voters rejoice and think "woo-hoo, more jobs for us" but then the bureaucrats are like "well, actually, those jobs will go towards imported foreigners, not to you, because you're not qualified enough or some other bullshit reason" and then the voters will clap back with "well I'm a product of YOUR education system mf-er, so it's YOUR fault that I'm not qualified enough". If you were them, wouldn't you be pissed too?

Funny how HN likes to criticize and gaslight people that it should be societally acceptable that foreigners being brough to take manufacturing jobs from locals, but they throw a hissy rage fit when H1Bs are being brough to the US to take their cushy tech jobs. Hypocrisy much?

Edi: love the empty angry downvotes with no explanation and no counter arguments simply because my detailed argument goes against the narrative. Means I'm right.

[tzs]

> Who determined it determined it is infeasible how was it determined? It's a car assembly plant, not a semiconductor fab that requires niche advanced degrees only available in Taiwan

It's not a car assembly plant. It's a battery factory. There is a car

> Surely the required labor can be found across a country of 300 million people, or easily trained from other adjacent fields that have lost workers due to economic driven redundancies or who want to switch careers for whatever reason.

When it is operational, probably. But right now it is being built and most of the Korean workers were engineers and technicians specializing in installing, testing, and bringing up highly technical specialized battery manufacturing equipment from Korea.

> They're the ones telling their voters there'll be a factory opening where they live and then the voters rejoice and think "woo-hoo, more jobs for us" but then the bureaucrats are like "well, actually, those jobs will go towards imported foreigners, not to you". If you were them, wouldn't you be pissed too?

These were temporary workers to install and bring up the equipment, and train US workers to operate it. Once running it was indeed going to employ mostly US workers, around 3000 directly and maybe another 5000 US jobs would be created in the domestic parts of its supply chain.

There is also a car factory in the same campus. That is running and most of the workers are US citizens. Hyundai has emphasized training local workers.

[FirmwareBurner]

>When it is operational, probably. But right now it is being built and most of the Korean workers were engineers and technicians specializing in installing, testing, and bringing up highly technical specialized battery manufacturing equipment from Korea.

OK good point. But then why hasn't Hyundai US management made sure to get their imported workers legal visas or that the people they hired had their visas up to date? Surely when you're running a business visa and immigration laws is another one of the things on your checklist, similar to having to follow OHSA laws, fire safety, fire drills, first aid, diversity and sensitivity training, etc and all the other stuff companies operating in the US have to follow.

Also be aware, my original comment was target that person's comment specifically, not the issues from the article.

[favflam]

I most humbly suggest that your finger is pointed in the wrong direction.

The ASMR deportation videos from the Homeland Security department and the fetish this maga movement seems to have in brutalizing foreigners coming to the US would indicate to me that the paperwork is not the problem.

Maybe that is the underlying point. Why does the US government, this administration, and its supporters have a fetish for chaining up foreigners and putting them in deportation camps housed no better than cattle (alligator alcatraz?)? Do they not consider the consequences of this?

US sales pitch: "Please build factories here, but I reserve the right at my own discretion with no warning to parade your employees in chains and stuff them into poorly maintained detention centers. Then to kick them out of the country and blame you.".

[pritambaral]

Who says they didn't? There is only one party here who acted in bad faith, and it wasn't Hyundai.

In fact, this party has a — by now well-established — track-record of precisely this bad behaviour. They haven't even tried to hide their actions, only their individual faces. They've been public about their disdain for the law, for humanity, and their general evil plans.

And here you are accusing their victims of crimes you, like them, have no evidence of.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Who says they didn't?

Government law enforcement says.

>There is only one party here who acted in bad faith, and it wasn't Hyundai.

Oh, so you were there present witnessing the arrests, and then you managed to check their visas to confirm Hyundai was 100% squeaky clean?

Then why aren't you with Hyundai suing the US government for abuse. Lawyers will have a field day with this if what you say is true.

>In fact, this party has a — by now well-established — track-record of precisely this bad behaviour. They haven't even tried to hide their actions, only their individual faces. They've been public about their disdain for the law, for humanity, and their general evil plans.

If you're talking about the evil Chaebol Hyundai here, then you'd be right, as it indeed has a very poor track record for legal violations:

### Hyundai Motor Group Controversies (Korea & International)

  - *Korea: Embezzlement (2006–2007)*  
  Chairman Chung Mong-koo got a suspended sentence for embezzling ~$106M for bribes and family control. Exposed chaebol corruption.

  - *Korea: Labor Disputes (Ongoing, peaked 2014–2016)\*  
  Violent strikes over wages and conditions cost $2.4B in production. Unions criticize Hyundai's autocratic management.

  - *Korea: Whistleblower Retaliation (2016–2017)*  
  Engineer Kim Gwang-ho exposed safety defect cover-ups, faced retaliation, and sparked U.S. probes and recalls.

  - *Korea: Family Succession Feuds (1990s–2010s)*  
  Chung family power struggles led to splits and nepotism allegations, highlighting chaebol governance issues.

  - *International: Fuel Economy Fraud (2012–2014)*  
  Hyundai/Kia overstated MPG for 1M+ U.S. vehicles, paid $300M in fines and credits.

  - *International: Diesel Emissions Cheating (2015–2022)*  
  Accused of using defeat devices, Hyundai settled for $192M in the U.S. and recalled millions globally.

  - *International: Safety Defects (2010s–2020s)*  
  Engine fires and brake issues led to 3M+ U.S. recalls and $100M+ in fines, tied to whistleblower claims.

[pjc50]

You can't do factory bringup without people on site; this is also something people have observed in the other direction when outsourcing to China, you need to send someone from the design team to the production line.

It's not clear to me what visa one is supposed to use for this or even if one is available at all.

[notmyjob]

A lack of clarity that is less likely to persist thanks to this event. Obviously we need better policy here, or a clarification of the law, and thankfully we now will get it.

[cjbenedikt]

That should answer your points: https://www.forbes.com/sites/timbajarin/2025/06/03/why-its-n...

[orwin]

To respond to your edit, my guess people downvote you because you completely misunderstood the situation and did not care to correct you when the situation was explained so many time, and probably think you're disingenuous.

I think you're not, so I'll try to explain:

When the technicians I work with install a new windfarm/gas plant router to connect them to electricity markets (they probably do other stuff but my job is the software part of networking, so I only know about that), we could hire a local contractor with CISCO cert, and it would certainly be cheaper than fly out 20 workers to Argentina, Australia, Romania or Mexico. We don't, because our employees will use the same technique, the same methodology each time, for every client, and we will never have to guess how the installation was done, because we know. You can put a price on trust, but it's really expensive. If we had plants in the US, I guarantee we would do the same, for the same reasons, unless the government bought our trust (which is basically reimbursing our losses if the plant fails because the installation wasn't done as our technicians would have).

Unless we hire permanent workers as we did in Romania because we took a big market share there, training someone to follow our procedure, highly personalized, for a week to a month of work is just not worth it, especially when so many specialties are needed for like one hour on one site. We do hire locals to run the day-to-day operations, but the installation, it's just not worth it. Better to fly a tech team every 5 years, that stay like a month, look around, fix shit, then leave.

For the second part: you misunderstood the situation. The workers were only there for the installation of the assembly line (and probably training for the B1s), not to work full-time.

Note that at least some of the workers have basically the same job as our technicians, network engineers, people I work with a lot and that I really respect. To see that parade, picture and video of them being taken on purpose while in chains (not handcuffed, in literal chains) to humiliate them on purpose, and seeing so many Americans cheer in front of that makes me hate most of you. Sorry, I know 'not all Americans', only a third, but still. Cheered because workers are publicly humiliated. That's what your country looks like from the outside.

[FirmwareBurner]

> To see that parade, picture and video of them being taken on purpose while in chains to humiliate them on purpose and seeing so many Americans cheer in front of that makes me hate most of you

Firstly, where do you see me cheering for that? I never said I approved of that. I was explaining how things work from the perspective of the people living there since they're less likely to be here commenting on HN.

Secondly, who is this "most of you", you claim to hate? I am not even from the US and don't approve of that, I was explain you the thought process of the people who approve of that, since it's simple and quite obvious. Your hate for me is unfounded.

> Cheered because workers are publicly humiliated.

I'll explain you again why the people there cheered. Put yourself in their shoes, you have no good education, no work opportunities, nothing, and suddenly when a factory opens in your town but instead of you getting jobs there, you see foreigners without working visa getting jobs there. Wouldn't you also cheer when you see law enforcement taking them away chains for the unfairness you perceive? To them it doesn't matter all the things you explained here about knowledge transfer and shit, that is irrelevant, what matters is that there's job opportunities that go to outsiders and not to them and they feel wronged by the system so seeing people in chains gives them a sense of retribution.

I can't believe I have to explain it several times, such basic stuff like the 'crabs in a bucket' mentality and why they cheer for such events unfolding. Are people THAT oblivious to this fact of life?

HN users aren't above this themselves. You'll see the same mentality crawl out of them if they're struggling to land jobs but see companies hiring H1B workers instead.

> That's what your country looks like from the outside.

Again, not my country, but if you asked the people there they will agree with my interpretation of the things because it's just basic human psychology.

No need to worry though. Hyundai will also give a "gift" to Trump just like Tim Cook's $300k 24 karat solid gold Apple stand, and Trump will make everything go back to normal and everyone wins. Trump got to look tough to voters by parading foreigners in chains and Hyundai gets to keep making money in the US like before. It's how business is done in banana republics.

[orwin]

Interestingly, the same happened in Western France 10-15 years ago or so, when my father worked in construction, with detached polish and Romanian workers. The unions and workers worked really hard (with the help of journalists and judges) to find proof of illegal employment, found them, arrested the CEOs and RH responsible, put some in prison and fined them backbreaking amounts.

My father was not a direct part of that (he stopped working in construction late 2013 and the exploitation continued until 2014 I think, and was judged in 2016), but he hosted two polish workers (or maybe the same twice), as some of his old friends did. No one would've cheered because we're not idiots, we know who we have to struggle against.

[notmyjob]

If you zoom out a bit, the consensus on this issue is pretty status quo: the bad guy is the government (ICE), not large multi-national corporations (hundai).

The bias is toward free market libertarian small government anti-populist cosmopolitanism. From that incentive structure all opinions flow.

[rsynnott]

> Surely the required labor can be found across a country of 300 million people, or easily trained from other adjacent fields that have lost workers due to economic driven redundancies or who want to switch careers for whatever reason.

Okay, so, you want to build a factory, installing vast quantities of specialised equipment, some of which likely literally only exists in your other factories. Do you (a) send over experienced technicians from one of your other facilities for a few months or (b) spend a few years training locals to do your highly specialised stuff, then when it's done in a few months fire them?

I mean, come on, now.