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Imperial Tyranny, Korean Humiliation

119 points by anigbrowl

by Eextra953

3 subcomments

Clearly this is a huge deal for Korea, their news sites have been talking about it non-stop since it happened and they've zeroed in on the humiliation and treatment of their people. The workers arrested weren't just laborers they were skilled labor and engineers which is another point they keep coming to. I've seen stories point out how they were shackled and forced to lick water from plates. As a tech worker in manufacturing I know that the entire industry depends on cross-training and manufacturing with other countries, sending engineers to and from is everyday practice. If the administration keeps with their policies then manufacturing will be affected negatively.

by tripletao

2 subcomments

The press coverage has mostly focused on the pointless show of physical force, the shackles and the prison-like detention. That should be criticized, but it sometimes feels like a tacit acknowledgement that all the workers were unlawfully present, or at least in some kind of "grey zone" (and thus did need to leave, just more humanely).
I'm not sure that's true. The B-1 forbids most work, including "construction", but there's a special set of rules for installing equipment sold by your foreign employer:
https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/BusinessVisa%20Pu...
Many of those detained were employees of Hyundai's equipment vendors. A lawyer for some of those employees is alleging they were in fact compliant for that reason:
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/lawyer-says...
If the DHS has evidence to the contrary, then it's had a week to disclose that and save some face. That they haven't may imply a significant fraction of those detained in these harsh conditions were in fact lawfully present.

by k310

1 subcomments

ICE doesn't care. It's all for the quotas, the show and the cruelty. Many are hooligans. None want to be identified.
Beat up people first. Check later. Often a force without badges, badges without numbers, without ID, without faces and without warrants.
It's an imperial private army.
Don't expect better. If the courts turn their backs, expect more cruelty, more disdain for law and procedures, more groups swept up, until ...

by antonymoose

16 subcomments

The big question, and please don’t go ape on me, is were these workers actually here with proper visas, did corporate screw up, or was this willful action on the part of the individuals?
I’m tired of seeing stories with no real facts and similarly tired of comment sections discussing the issue without them either.
What actually happened here?

by insane_dreamer

0 subcomment

Typically with this sort of thing (not just in the US but other developed countries) -- you don't have the correct visa for the work that you're doing -- you're given 72/48/24 hours to leave the country and that's that. (If you don't leave, then there could be more serious consequences.) And usually this happens at the company level -- in other words, the company is responsible for its employees' visas, and told they need to get their people out within X time, or otherwise come into compliance immediately.
But the way that this was handled was completely out of hand, treating the employees (who have the paperwork handled by the company anyway) as common criminals, and to a country that's an ally (and one that you're trying to get to invest in your country), is completely ludicrous in a developed country, the type of action you might expect in the DRC or Myanmar.
And the fact that ICE said it took "months of preparation and coordination", means that they knew these people didn't have the proper visas and instead of warning the company to take its people home and/or come into compliance, they planned a high-profile military-style raid.
I'm not Korean but I can easily see how this would make Korean companies and their employees want nothing to do with the US.

by mwkaufma

0 subcomment

Zeroing in on poor whites in the "rust belt" obscures the regimes base of support amongst affluent and propertied classes.

by BrenBarn

0 subcomment

What I find depressing is that so many of these cases lead to various authorities issuing a limited statement on behalf of just their particular in-group. We do see some wider condemnation going on. But like, the right thing for the Korean companies and government to do would be to issue a full-throated denunciation of the administration's entire immigration fiasco (if not the entire administration itself), rather than just "please don't do these specific things to this particular type of worker from this particular country".
If someone is firing a machine gun indiscriminately in all directions, it's naive to think you can survive by asking them to just please not point it towards you.

by solid_fuel

0 subcomment

Regardless of the specifics of paperwork issues and letter of the law, people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. It may be easy to turn a blind eye to the inhumane conditions in many immigration holding facilities when it feels like the victims are of a different class, or a different group of people. But if this doesn't rouse the empathy of other engineers I don't know what will.
The people who were detained here are just like the average hacker news user - educated professionals traveling for business. Please imagine what it would be like to travel - in good faith - to Germany, Japan, or South Korea for work only to be detained, chained like cattle in poor conditions, and paraded in front of television cameras like a prize. How would you feel about continuing to work with that country?
Here is the call to action - if these actions by the administration upset you, call your senators and representatives and demand that the leaders of ICE and the DHS be held accountable for this raid and the conditions of these detention centers. We are perfectly capable of enforcing our laws without abusing people.

by hahaxdxd123

1 subcomments

For those of you asking what the Koreans did wrong (in good faith), that question is framed poorly.
There is simply no visa that allows skilled labor to come to the US, work a temporary job for a multinational that's paying them in their home country, and leave.
The closest thing apparently is the "B-1 in lieu of H-1B"[1] and guess what? Another commenter posted this FT article that accuses them of abusing this B-1 visa [2].
Traveling for work is a huge pain in the ass, doubly so for this sort of temporary work assignment, and triply so if it's to the USA.
I've always been told to use a tourist or family reunification visa. For example, if China cracked down on this, they could easily put 10,000+ Americans in jail for a similar "visa abuse". They obviously would not bite the hand of foreign direct investment like this though.
I think it's informative to interpret the law - especially in the age of Congressional gridlock - as 300 years of terrible legacy code papered over the Herculean efforts of ops teams (the government bureaucracy). When that ops team starts arbitrarily treating the oceans of gray zones to their whims, to reward friends and punish enemies, you start the long trek to serfdom...
[1] https://www.wsmimmigration.com/us-immigration/temporary-work...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/c677b9aa-2e89-4feb-a56f-f3c8452b3...

by thrance

0 subcomment

> MAGA represents a reactionary movement by white evangelical forces seeking to revert America to a time before the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Its core supporters are low-income, poorly educated white Americans and evangelical Protestants. Trump has become a voice amplifying the anxieties of these groups, whose societal status has been shaken by job losses due to globalization, deepening economic polarization, and a surge in immigration. Trump has incited them to channel their anger toward the established elite and “outsiders,” such as people of color, undocumented immigrants, and Muslims.
Neat and tidy summary of what MAGA is.

by reversengineer

1 subcomments

My theory is, corporate screwup. HR is responsible for tracking these things.