SEOUL: South Korea will send a chartered plane to Atlanta as early as Wednesday (Sep 10) to bring back workers detained in a huge immigration raid last week on a car battery plant in the US state of Georgia, a Korean Air spokesperson said on Tuesday.
President Lee Jae Myung said Seoul would negotiate with Washington to achieve a reasonable resolution to the situation based on the spirit of their alliance, adding at a cabinet meeting that he felt a “heavy responsibility” for the detained nationals.
A Korean Air Boeing 747-8i plane with 368 seats will fly from South Korea’s Incheon to Atlanta, according to the spokesperson. During the US immigration raid about 300 South Koreans were arrested along with 175 others at the site of the US$4.3 billion Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution project to build batteries for electric cars.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is in Washington to negotiate on points such as seeking assurances that the Koreans returned home will be allowed to re-enter the United States.
The raid – the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of the Department of Homeland Security’s investigative operations – sent shockwaves through South Korea, a US ally that has been trying to finalise a trade deal agreed with Washington in July.
A Realmeter opinion poll published on Tuesday showed that nearly 60 per cent of South Koreans felt disappointed by what they viewed as excessive action by US authorities in the raid, while about 30 per cent regarded the action as unavoidable. Two Japanese nationals and up to nine Chinese citizens were among the detainees, the Nikkei business daily reported.
