{"id":219750,"date":"2025-09-12T02:40:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T02:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/219750\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T02:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T02:40:12","slug":"trumps-investment-push-runs-into-his-immigration-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/219750\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s investment push runs into his immigration crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s push to revitalize American manufacturing by luring foreign investment into the U.S.<\/a> has run smack into one of his other priorities: cracking down on illegal immigration.<\/p>\n

Hardly a week after immigration authorities raided a sprawling Hyundai battery plant<\/a> in Georgia, detained more than 300 South Korean workers and showed video of some of them shackled in chains, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned that the country\u2019s other companies may be reluctant<\/a> to take up Trump\u2019s invitation to pour money into the United States.<\/p>\n

If the U.S. can\u2019t promptly issue visas to the technicians and other skilled workers needed to launch plants<\/a>, then \u201cestablishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies,\u201d Lee said Thursday. \u201cThey will wonder whether they should even do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The raid and subsequent diplomatic crisis<\/a> show how the Trump administration\u2019s mass deportation goals are running up against its efforts to bring in money from abroad to drive the U.S. economy and create more jobs. Moves like workplace immigration enforcement<\/a> and visa restrictions<\/a> could risk alienating allies that are pledging to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. to avoid high tariffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

South Korea is already a big investor in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s economic agenda is built around using hefty tariffs on imports<\/a>, including a 15% levy on South Korean products, as a cudgel to force manufacturing to return to the U.S. He\u2019s repeatedly said foreign companies can escape his tariffs if they produce in America. South Korea, already a top investor, pledged to invest $350 billion in the U.S. when the two sides announced a trade deal<\/a> in July.<\/p>\n

It made more investments in new construction, such as factories, on previously undeveloped land than any other country in 2022. Last year, it ranked 12th in the world with $93 billion in total American investment \u2014 including acquisitions of existing companies, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.<\/p>\n

But the dramatic roundup of South Koreans<\/a> and others working to set up the battery plant threatens to put a chill on the investment push. Indeed, Trump seems to be trying to undo the damage. <\/p>\n

While demanding that foreign investors \u201cLEGALLY bring your very smart people,\u201d Trump also promised to \u201cmake it quickly and legally possible for you to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump will continue delivering on his promise to make the United States the best place in the world to do business, while also enforcing federal immigration laws,\u201d White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement Thursday.<\/p>\n

For now, the South Koreans are furious and immigration experts are puzzled. It\u2019s been common practice for decades for foreign companies \u2014 such as the Japanese and German carmakers that have built factories in the American Midwest and South \u2014 to send technical specialists from their home countries to help open plants in the United States. Most of them train U.S. workers, then go home.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapanese managers, senior engineers, other technical experts had to come to the United States to set this stuff up,\u201d said Lee Branstetter, a professor of economics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University who\u2019s studied Japanese auto plants in the U.S. <\/p>\n

American companies do the same thing, sending U.S. workers overseas temporarily to get operations started.<\/p>\n

Some experts call it a baffling, \u2018performative\u2019 raid <\/p>\n

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched the roundup last week at a manufacturing site that state officials have touted as Georgia\u2019s largest economic development project.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really baffling to me why this raid would have occurred,\u201d said Ben Armstrong, executive director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology\u2019s Industrial Performance Center. \u201cThe existence of these workers shouldn\u2019t have been a surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. immigration officials could have audited the workers\u2019 documents without the drama, retired immigration lawyer Dan Kowalski said, adding that \u201craiding and arresting and putting them in chains and shackles is 100% performative.\u201d <\/p>\n

It had to do with \u201cwanting to look tough \u2014 arresting as many foreigners as possible for the photo-op,\u201d said Kowalski, who is now a writer and editor.<\/p>\n

U.S. work visa categories make it a challenge to bring in foreign workers quickly and easily, said Kevin Miner, an immigration lawyer in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Some run on a highly competitive lottery system, are for seasonal workers and have a cap, or are restricted to managers and executives. Other short-term visas have strict limits on employment.<\/p>\n

After meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio this week in Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said they agreed to set up a joint working group for discussions on creating a new visa category to make it easier for South Korean companies to send their staff to work in the United States. <\/p>\n

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau also plans to visit Seoul this weekend.<\/p>\n

Calls for fixes to the U.S. visa system <\/p>\n

Hyundai\u2019s \u201cdesire to get this thing up and running as quickly as possible ran head-on into the often time-consuming processes that the U.S. government requires in order to issue business visas,\u201d said Branstetter of Carnegie Mellon.<\/p>\n

U.S. authorities say those detained were \u201cunlawfully working\u201d at the plant. Charles Kuck, a lawyer representing several of the detained South Koreans, said the \u201cvast majority\u201d of the workers from South Korea were doing work authorized under a visa program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, said work visas \u2014 like nearly all other aspects of the U.S. immigration system \u2014 need reform.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur visa system does not envision this kind of scenario,\u201d Gelatt said, of bringing in skilled foreign workers needed for the initial setup of factories. The U.S. has a few country-specific visa categories that make it easier to bring in certain foreign workers, like those from Mexico, Australia or Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal,\u201d said MIT\u2019s Armstrong, \u201cshould be to make foreign direct investment as streamlined as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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