What to know about Korean workers detained in immigration raid now on flight back home

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ATLANTA (AP) — More than 300 South Korean workers detained in an immigration raid at a Georgia battery departed Atlanta on Thursday on flight home.

The workers went by bus from southeast Georgia to Atlanta earlier in the day and are expected to land in South Korea on Friday afternoon, according to South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

The developments came the same day South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called for improvements in the U.S. visa system as he spoke about the Sept. 4 immigration raid that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 South Korean workers at at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant west of Savannah.

The Foreign Ministry said U.S. authorities have released the 330 detainees — 316 of them Koreans — and that they were being transported by buses to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport. The group includes 10 Chinese nationals, three Japanese nationals and one Indonesian.

The flight is back on track after an earlier departure had been canceled for an unspecified reason.

Here are some things to know about the raid and its aftermath:

The Korean Air Boeing 747-8i departed from Seoul for the U.S. to bring back the detained Korean workers and landed in Atlanta.

The workers were being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston, in southeast Georgia, near the state line with Florida. It’s a 285-mile (460-kilometer) drive from there to Atlanta.

South Korean officials said they were negotiating with the U.S. to win “voluntary” departures for the workers, rather than deportations, which could make them ineligible to return to the U.S. for up to 10 years.

During a visit to Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him that his people were left with “big pains and shocks” because the video of the workers’ arrests was publicly disclosed, the ministry said in a statement.

Cho called for the U.S. administration to help the workers leave as soon as possible — without being handcuffed — and to ensure they do not face problems in future reentry to the U.S., the statement said.

During his meeting with Rubio, Cho also proposed the creation of a joint South Korea-U.S. working group to introduce a new visa category for workers from the Asian nation, according to Cho’s ministry.

South Korean TV showed Cho Ki-joong, consul general at the embassy in Washington, speaking outside the detention center. He said some administrative steps remained but things were going smoothly. The Foreign Ministry declined to comment on media reports that he and other diplomats met with the detained workers.

South Korea's president said in a speech marking 100 days in office Thursday that Korean companies would likely hesitate to further invest in the U.S. unless Washington improves its visa system for their workers.

Lee said that whether the U.S. establishes a visa system allowing South Korean companies to send skilled workers to industrial sites will have a “major impact” on future investments.

“It’s not like these are long-term workers. When you build a factory or install equipment at a factory, you need technicians, but the United States doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work,” he said.

“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies. They will wonder whether they should even do it,” Lee added.

U.S. authorities have said that those detained during the raid were “unlawfully working” at the plant. But Charles Kuck, a lawyer representing several of the detained South Koreans, said the “vast majority” of the workers from South Korea were doing work that is authorized under the B-1 business visitor visa program.

A B-1 visitor for business visa allows foreign workers to stay for up to six months, getting reimbursed for expenses while collecting a paycheck back home. There are limits — for example, they can supervise construction projects but can’t build anything themselves — but if it’s spelled out in a contract, they can install equipment, Los Angeles immigration lawyer Angelo Paparelli said.

Also, South Korea is one of 41 countries whose citizens can use the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), which provides visa waivers to those who can provide “a legitimate reason’’ for their visit. This basically gives them B-1 visa status for up to 90 days, according to Los Angeles immigration attorney Rita Sostrin.

The raid targeted one of the Georgia's largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in state history. Hyundai Motor Group began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people.

In a statement Wednesday, the governor's office stressed its “strong relationship with the Republic of Korea and Korean partners like Hyundai, stretching back 40 years to the establishment of Georgia's trad office in Seoul.”

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Bynum reported from Folkston, Georgia. Associated Press writers Hyung-Jin Kim in Seoul, Didi Tang and Paul Wiseman in Washington and Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed.