• Chosun Ilbo (flagship conservative): Scathing language calling this a “merciless arrest operation” that represents something “that cannot happen between allies” and a “breach of trust.” Notes Trump personally thanked Hyundai’s chairman just months ago. Chosun calls the situation “bewildering” and emphasises the contradiction: Trump pressures Korean companies to invest while simultaneously arresting their workers. The editorial questions whether American investment promises survive across different administrations.
• Dong-A Ilbo (conservative): Delivers perhaps the most damning question in its headline: “How are we supposed to build factories?” while noting Korea was “specifically targeted” and describing this as “shocking” behaviour between allies. Dong-A asks “who would invest” under these conditions when Korean workers are treated like a “criminal group.” Notes this threatens 17,000+ jobs already created by Korean companies in Georgia. “The Korean government must demand a pledge from the US to prevent recurrence.”
• JoongAng Ilbo (conservative): Calls this an incident that “shook the values and trust of the ROK-US alliance” occurring at the very “site of economic alliance.” Describes public being “appalled” at seeing Koreans dragged away in chains and cable ties. JoongAng characterises this as a “show-off style crackdown targeting an allied nation” and “an act that undermines the credibility of the alliance.” Suggests this may have been Trump’s political theatre ahead of midterm elections.
• Korea Economic Daily (business): Headlines this as an “absurd arrest of Koreans” incident. “It is hard to understand in terms of common sense why quotas for visas are given to Australia, Singapore and Chile, but not a single visa to Korea.” KED notes that “this incident is a significant blow to the ROK-US economic alliance,” warning that if this is used as “leverage” in trade negotiations, “it would be a behaviour of betraying the trust of the alliance.”
• Maeil Business Newspaper: Uses headline: “When they told us to build factories, that was one thing… US arrests 300 Korean workers.” Calls situation “shocking” and “absurd”, notes you cannot supervise trillion-won investments without Korean personnel. Maeil states that it’s “ridiculous that they would go after a company that has made a deliberate decision to invest in the US,” ending with a simple but blunt message: “an alliance requires courtesy.”
• Seoul Economic Daily (business): Calls this “shocking”. “Our citizens’ rights must never be violated again,” describes the arrest footage as “horrifying”. Uses particularly strong language, that the Korean workers were treated like “prisoners of war.” “While we do not understand the political motivations of the far-right Republicans in the US in this reckless crackdown, it is also painful to see how our diplomacy failed to recognise a massive operation that had been planned for months.”
• Hankook Ilbo (centrist-conservative): Korean companies “ended up looking like they got hit from behind,” warns this threatens “trust between allies” and calls for fundamental visa system reform.
• Kyunghyang Shinmun (liberal): Calls this “what kind of bolt from the blue incident is this?” and “deeply regrettable” while criticising “treating them like criminals.” Questions whether rational businesses would invest in a country behaving this way.
• Hankyoreh (progressive): Most direct in questioning alliance fundamentals with headline “Is this what you do to an ally?”. Describes Koreans feeling “backstabbed” after the Lee-Trump meeting at the White House and accuses US of “duplicitous behaviour.”

My 2 cents: In Korea, public humiliation isn’t just personal embarrassment, it’s an attack on dignity that reverberates through society. The fact that the workers were filmed being shackled and footage was deliberately released by ICE makes it worse. Korea has deep historical memory of being humiliated by foreign powers and the visuals of Koreans in chains being paraded by a foreign power triggers collective memories of subjugation that go beyond this just being “unfair”. This is public humiliation of the nation itself.

https://xcancel.com/MarioNawfal/status/1965341910769307686

SOUTH KOREA DISPATCHES PLANE TO BRING BACK WORKERS SEIZED IN U.S. RAID

South Korea is sending a chartered Korean Air Boeing 747 from Incheon to Atlanta to repatriate hundreds of its nationals detained in the U.S. immigration raid on a $4.3 billion Hyundai–LG battery plant in Georgia. About 300 South Koreans were among the 475 arrested in what U.S. officials called the largest-ever single-site enforcement operation. Foreign Minister Cho Hyun is in Washington pressing for assurances that those workers will be allowed re-entry. The raid has rattled Seoul as it finalizes a trade deal with Washington.

https://xcancel.com/kimchipump/status/1965384315749249441

Korea has only ever dispatched flights to repatriate its citizens from failing states. This is the first time I’ve seen it happen in a developed nation…

https://xcancel.com/kimchipump/status/1965008542072492400

Due to U.S. immigration crackdowns at a Georgia battery plant, Korean companies are withdrawing their workers from the 22 construction sites across the country to avoid similar raids. The issue is compounded by the fact that the U.S. lacks a sufficient number of skilled workers with the capacity to handle these highly specialized jobs at the construction sites