Because of the poor reporting, it's not possible to say for sure what happened, but it sounds like Hyundai/LG/subcontractors brought in hundreds of South Koreans on B visas and had them engaging in productive work. That's not what B visas are for. B visas are for meetings, sales, and maybe some light training/setup/integration. When the CEO talks about needing specialized, skilled workers, that's a strong suggestion these workers should have been on L visas.
Times reporting confirmed a few of the workers were on B visas: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/business/economy/hyundai-...
Unfortunately the same article doesn't even mention the L visa, and cites an immigration lawyer who complains about the difficulty of getting H-1B visas. But L visas are not capped like H-1Bs. In India we approved thousands of L visas specifically for skilled workers to assist with bringing plants/equipment online.
In short, the B visa is not a work visa. Most countries worldwide are quite restrictive about the conditions surrounding work visas, and people who violate the conditions of their visa shouldn't be surprised when there are consequences. Having a valid visa but violating its conditions means you are violating immigration law.
Corporate immigration departments can and do cut corners and may have thought they would save money and time by sending foreign workers on B visas (which they might have already had) or on the visa waiver program. L visa holders don't even have to get paid US-level wages, so one take on the visa type is that it is already a way for companies to undercut US labor.
What do you mean by "maybe" or "light"? That's an explicitly permitted activity:
> A B-1 visa may be granted to specialized workers going to the United States to install, service, or repair commercial or industrial equipment or machinery purchased from a company outside of the United States, or to train U.S. workers to perform such services.
https://es.usembassy.gov/visas/commercial-industrial-workers...
Modern factories are filled with machines the size of buildings, making that installation sometimes hard to distinguish from the forbidden "construction". It's possible that some of those Koreans were unequivocally on the bad side of the line, but I see zero possibility that the agents could have meaningfully assessed that in the time between beginning the raid and taking the workers away in shackles.
I feel like installing equipment is widely considered to be an illegitimate use of B-1 visas, despite this explicit guidance. I don't understand why. I see from your comment history that you were a US diplomat. Is the internal guidance you received different from what's published?
Probably, I doubt anyone in the US government has a consistent view of what immigration laws are _and_ how they're actually enforced. Whole thing feels like a giant slapdash of things thrown together and assessed in whatever way feels right that day.
Here's a fun one: do people born in Hong Kong count as being born in China for green card purposes? Used to be no, then Trump 1 said "yes" with an executive order, then as best I can tell no one in government really enforced that, then immigration lawyers tell me they're counted as rest of world instead of China, and now? Who the hell knows, whoever gets your case probably makes up what they feel is the law.
And this after the admin starts a tariff war against treaty allies for not building factories in the US? Very schizo.
This whole situation is complete insanity and is completely the fault of this administration and the maga movement.
Hyundai has done something similar with children refugees from Central America previously in 2022.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Alabama_child_labor_al...
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/sep/12/s...
And for the downvoters, try going and working in a foreign country without the proper paperwork and see how it pans out (and how the locals feel about it)...
I cannot honestly believe that you think any group of people on earth would look at this situation and then think that they should have just followed the rules better.
The South Korean government is already saying that the US needs to fix its visa program if it wants the investment[1]
[1] https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_internatio...
This wasn’t in a vacuum done solely for Hyundais profit. The government that did this raid is currently threatening every other country that doesn’t invest in the US _now_ with tariffs and sanctions.
I’m actually trying to understand your point here because what you’re describing to me seems as crazy as a seeing a mugger be pissed that the muggee wasn’t polite enough during the encounter
Which one would that be in this case?
Some of the workers were on tourist visas.
It's very disappointing. I just bought an Ioniq 9 and it's a great car. I'm really bothered, at both sides, (US and Hundai/LG), for letting the situation get like this.
> Working illegally in South Korea can result in deportation, a fine of up to 30 million KRW (approximately US$22,000), and a ban on re-entry for up to five years. Employers who hire illegal foreign workers also face significant penalties, including fines of up to 20 million KRW (around US$15,000) and/or imprisonment.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/10/trump-ice-big-beautiful-bil...
https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...
At least be honest with yourself about what's happening in front of your eyes.
If HN detests H1B abuse by consultancies like TCS, then calling out B1/2 and VWP visa abuse by Korean manufacturing firms should be acceptable as well, otherwise it's just white collar hypocrisy.
This factory has had multiple deaths in the past two years due to labor abuse and shoddy safety standards [1][2][3], but kept getting pushed back by political pressure. Given the size of the raid, someone at OSHA most likely gave an "anonymous" tip [4].
91 ambulance calls were made at this factory site over 20 months [5] - well above the average for similar sites [6].
TSMC attempted something similar when spinning up the Chandler fab, but the Biden admin stuck to their guns and pushed back on TSMC.
[0] - https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...
[1] - https://www.kherkhergarcia.com/fatal-forklift-accident-batte...
[2] - https://labornotes.org/2025/09/georgia-battery-plant-raid-sp...
[3] - https://www.spaglaw.com/blog/2025/05/worker-killed-by-fallin...
[4] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-...
[5] - https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/local/2025/03/15/peop...
[6] - https://www.ajc.com/news/2025/06/construction-deaths-injurie...
But that's not what happened. And the message seems pretty clear: don't come to the US to work, unless you fancy being treated like a busted drug dealer.
You can't do that and then claim it was about workplace safety. Well, I mean, I guess you can, but the factory workers and investors aren't going to believe you.
I realize that's kinda dense, but you can google it up yourself. Koreans well understand this type of thing.
Now tell them it wasn't just an ordinary illegal immigrant worker, but a group of, let's say, BMW employees from Germany, building a new car factory in (some Korean city), but apparently they had the wrong visa.
Koreans would say "Have we completely lost our goddamn mind?"
They have - multiple times, both under Biden and Trump, as the sources I gave have mentioned. Heck, The Guardian in strongly opposed to the Trump admin and pointed this out too.
> But that's not what happened
That is what happened. The issue was Hyundai would spin up yet another contracting firm when an OSHA incident arose, thus keeping business as usual.
[0] - https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/ngos-urge-un-human-ri...
[1] - https://www.newskorea.ne.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=7205
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?
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...
AFAIK H1Bs follow the letter of the law and calls are for reform to make visas stricter / reduce the kinds of visas, which is basically the opposite of what I’m seeing here.
Yes. Of these companies [0], Hyundai-LG has been the only malcontent
The European and Japanese manufacturers haven't done anything similar - only the Koreans are.
[0] - https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/06/tracking-the-ev-battery-fa...
Hyundai has been notorious about this for decades in the US, like the ongoing child labor scandal [0]
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi...
You can't complain about it in your industry and get mad when people do it about theirs...