That’s a joint venture with two American manufacturers (and Daimler trucks North America itself was an American company it bought out), it’s not a realistic comparison.
Fine. Then how about Japan-domiciled Panasonic [0][1] and Toyota [2], as well as (South Korean) Samsung and Stellantis' gigafactory [3]?
You didn't see similar persistent flouting of labor and immigration laws despite all 3 being lead by Asian (and in some cases Korean) companies with similar organizational structures.
Hyundai played it fast and loose. If Samsung SDI can open a gigafactory in the US while following US laws, why can't Hyundai?
Just because ICE was extremely heavy-handed does NOT absolve or give Hyundai-LG the right to break American labor or immigration laws, or ask for special treatment.
Even Biden bluntly told Hyundai leadership to "Hire American" [4] following pushback over this plant.
I must confess that these specific stories are outside my domain of knowledge that I can’t comfortably comment on them specifically.
My understanding is that it is fairly common practice for foreign companies to send experts from their home countries in order to do knowledge transfer, since the skill set isn’t available domestically.
Yep! It is. The issue has been that Hyundai is trying to bring in long-term technician labor on VWP and B visas, when they should be classified under H2B or L1B.
And the added issue is, most other companies (even Korean ones like Samsung) have been able to bring comparable projects online without ending up with the same scandals.
Hyundai has a common and persistent practice of bringing in Koreans from Korea to work manual labor abroad, and was warned by regulators on multiple occasions about this [0], and even their employees in Korea warned management that they were breaking regulations [0]
Even during the Biden admin we warned Korean companies not to play it fast and loose [0]:
"U.S. Department of Commerce official Andrew Gately warned South Korean companies and their contractors last year not to "cut corners" in visa applications.
"Please do not put your employees or the employees of your contractors at risk," he said at a seminar in Seoul."
This isn't a Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation, especially given that Korean business media is framing this as a "how dare they touch Koreans after we invest" situation instead of as a humanitarian situation. Why should FDI buy impunity - especially when projects like the Hyundai one were funded by IRA subsidizes.
Installing machinery does not fall under the B visa exemption [1]. An engineering manager advising on software would.
I see your concern, and taking what you’re asserting here as a given for the purposes of this conversation, I’d agree it needs to be addressed.
However, it should be addressed at the corporate level, not by targeting the individual workers. They are just doing their jobs under the direction of their employers. Any fraud committed here is by the Hyundai corporation first and foremost.
The treatment of these workers has been exceedingly cruel and should be considered out of bounds in this country, but sadly it has become normalized.
We've done this for over a decade with both Democrats and Republicans in power.
I agree that the treatment was horrendous, but Korean businesses and politicans aren't angry because of the treatment - they are angry because now they cannot use this practice any longer.
The same raid would have happened under the Harris administration, and the same political fallout would have happened.
Even South Korean police continue to use indefinite detention during immigration raids (despite the constitutional court ruling against them) and has notoriously horrid migrant labor rights, so it's very hypocritical when Korean workers arrested were given better conditions than Mongolian, Vietnamese, or Thai migrants caught in similar dragnets in Korea are provided, but there is no interest in Korea to leverage this to better Korea and American labor rights.
ICE has overreached, but then going back and defending Hyundai like a significant number of people are is deeply wrong. The UAw was right to both condemn Hyundai as well as ICE. Yet, a significant portion of people are saying Georgia should be thankful to get this kind of FDI (even though it was thanks to our tax dollars becuase of the IRA).
I’m well aware of the fact that these types of issues have been a part of the system for a long time, nowhere in my string of comments did I indicate that this was an issue of one administration nor one party, I was simply commenting on the case under discussion.
As an American I am not responsible for the actions of another nation, but I am for those of my own. Therefore it is immaterial to me how Korea treats immigrants, at least not when I am discussing the morality of our system.
Either you have a sense of what is right and wrong when it comes to our fellow human beings or you don’t. Feel free to criticize the actions of the Korean government if you want, that does not absolve the US of its own transgressions.
This plant [0] and others like it were all subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) [1].
If our tax dollars are going to subsidize the construction and development of these factories, then they better follow our laws.
Hyundai is the only malcontent. Every other IRA project has not had a similar kind of scandal.
If Hyundai doesn't want to participate in American Industrial Subsidizes by following our laws, they can return the billions of dollars in subsidizes provided.
> I'm seeing a lot of demands
Follow our laws if you want our subsidizes.
Hire American if you want our subsidizes.
Biden literally told Hyundai's leadership this same thing point blank. [2]
You also have to wonder how illegal immigration is managed in Korea.
I'm going to assume they take a very different approach from what they are expecting from the US.
You didn't see similar persistent flouting of labor and immigration laws despite all 3 being lead by Asian (and in some cases Korean) companies with similar organizational structures.
Hyundai played it fast and loose. If Samsung SDI can open a gigafactory in the US while following US laws, why can't Hyundai?
Just because ICE was extremely heavy-handed does NOT absolve or give Hyundai-LG the right to break American labor or immigration laws, or ask for special treatment.
Even Biden bluntly told Hyundai leadership to "Hire American" [4] following pushback over this plant.
[0] - https://na.panasonic.com/news/panasonic-energy-begins-mass-p...
[1] - https://www.desotoks.us/394/Panasonic-Electric-Vehicle-Batte...
[2] - https://www.toyota.com/usa/operations/map/tbmnc
[3] - https://news.samsungsdi.com/global/articleView?seq=36
[4] - https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...