Flight to repatriate Koreans detained in Georgia plant raid unexpectedly delayed

A flight chartered by the Korean government to repatriate hundreds of Korean nationals detained in an immigration raid on a battery plant in Georgia has been delayed, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry announced on September 10.

The ministry said the flight, scheduled to depart from Georgia at 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 10, would not leave on time “due to circumstances on the U.S. side.”

No new timetable had been provided as of the newspaper’s press time.

Despite the delay, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is still scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on the morning of September 10. Cho said before leaving Seoul on September 8 that his meeting with Rubio would be aimed at preventing similar incidents in the future.

The announcement of the delay came despite assurances a day earlier from senior presidential aides that the detained Korean workers would be flown home on September 10. President Lee Jae Myung himself said the detainees would be returning “soon,” raising expectations that repatriation was imminent.

Instead, the workers remain in U.S. custody, caught in a tangle of legal and diplomatic questions stemming from the raid carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) last week.

The agency’s operation at Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution’s joint battery plant in Savannah, Georgia, led to the detention of 475 foreign nationals, more than 300 of them Koreans.

Most of the Korean nationals had entered the United States under the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) visa waiver program or on short-term business visas, such as the B-1 visa. Neither permits employment.

While Seoul has pressed for their swift return, Washington has signaled it will apply immigration law strictly, a stance that could leave detainees with lasting penalties.

A key issue is whether the workers’ departure will be treated as voluntary or classified as a deportation.

Immigration experts say ICE is likely to view those who entered under the visa waiver system as clear violators of employment restrictions, making them subject to formal deportation orders. Such orders typically bar reentry to the United States for years.

Korean officials have said they are negotiating with U.S. counterparts to ensure the workers face no “future disadvantages.” Legal experts, however, describe that outcome as “almost impossible.”

The plant that was targeted by ICE in Georgia is among the state’s largest foreign investment projects and a centerpiece of Korea’s pledge to spend tens of billions of dollars in the United States to offset tariffs.

The raid also came at a delicate moment. The two countries are still finalizing terms of a tentative trade agreement reached in late July, just before U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s deadline to impose new tariffs on Korean exports.

Seoul has argued that “economic activities by our investor companies and the rights of our nationals must not be unfairly infringed upon during U.S. law enforcement operations.”

But Trump has defended the raid, saying ICE agents “were just doing their jobs.”

On September 7, he wrote on social media that his administration would make it “quickly and legally possible” for foreign companies to bring workers into the country if they respected U.S. immigration rules, while also urging such corporations to hire Americans.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]