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One has to perversely love how this movement has morphed into the primary concern being negative-sum strict enforcement of broken immigration laws, including ag

One has to perversely love how this movement has morphed into the primary concern being negative-sum strict enforcement of broken immigration laws, including against countries we're hoping will transfer us expertise and technology. I thought the constructive goal was to restore US industrial capacity and manufacturing jobs? Maybe you should try holding this con artist to doing something positive for our country, rather than being distracted by a series of destructive spectacles.

alephnerd 1y ago
I HATE Trump, and was very closely aligned with the previous administration. Even in the Biden admin we pushed back on Taiwanese companies like TSMC attempting something similar, as well as Hyundai after they were discovered using undocumented child labor to build one of their EV factories. This exact raid would have happened even if Harris was in the White House right now. > I thought the constructive goal was to restore US industrial capacity and manufacturing jobs And deciding to almost exclusively use temporary Korean labor without the correct insurance and workman's comp contributions in order to set cement and lay pipe is adding American jobs? European, Japanese, and Taiwanese projects of similar scope haven't done similar shenanigans. > We understand bending of the rules to build things... That'll hold up in court when an employee is crushed by falling steel while building a battery plant, like what happened at this Hyundai plant right before the raid (which the Guardian reports seems to have been done by OSHA inspectors annoyed at Hyundai's relative impunity) [0] > I thought the constructive goal was to restore US industrial capacity and manufacturing jobs "The children yearn for the mines" [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-georgia-hyundai-south-korea https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-...
- triceratops 1y ago
  > use temporary Korean labor to set cement and lay pipe is adding American jobs Media reporting on this has been kinda slipshod. Is that what actually happened? I was under the impression they were setting up imported machinery. It seems grossly inefficient to me to send workers on B1s to pour cement.
  - alephnerd 1y ago
    > Is that what actually happened Yes. Manufacturing speicifc news agencies have reported on this [0]. Korean and American unions have united to condemn the ICE raids [1], but that doesn't absolve Hyundai-LG for committing labor and immigration abuse. > It seems grossly inefficient to me to send workers on B1s to pour cement. It is WAY cheaper than paying the right insurance and US construction salairies ($20k-40k in SK versus $70k-90k in the Georgia). > It's not just salaries though is it? There's hotels/accommodation, flights, per diems That's at most $10k post-tax. Paying $70k-90k means also paying around an additional 0.25-0.5x in employer contributions depending on the state in the US. By bringing in labor from Korea, they are being paid in Won, covered by insurance IN Korea (not the US), and all workman's comp has been paid IN Korea (not the US). > so there'd be some language friction Yep, but most of management and the chain in-between in Hyundai (and most Korean companies) are always Koreans or Korean diaspora. This has been a major friction in Vietnam and India as well, where Korean companies like Hyundai-Kia and Samsung would segregate Korean nationals and Korean origin personnel from locals (eg. Separate canteens, separate accommodations, separate per diems) even if they were doing the same work at the same level. Samsung's chip design office in Gurgaon is notorious for this. > which you edited later to remove) I can't reply, so I'm in the process of replying via edits. I accidentally deleted it during the editing process [0] - https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/georgia-hyundai-jobsite-raid-ice-construction/759629/ https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/georgia-hyundai-jobsi... [1] - https://uaw.org/kmwu-and-uaw-joint-statement-we-stand-united-against-all-attacks-restricting-the-rights-of-workers/ https://uaw.org/kmwu-and-uaw-joint-statement-we-stand-united...
    - triceratops 1y ago
      > Even Korean unions united with the UAW to condemn Hyundai-LG for this The statement has a vague mention of the company forcing the workers to shoulder "visa risks". One sentence out of 5 paragraphs. Most of the condemnation in that statement is about the actual raid. Even UAW, an American union, thought that went too far. > It is WAY cheaper than paying the right insurance and US construction salairies ($20k-40k in SK) It's not just salaries though is it? There's hotels/accommodation, flights, per diems. The churn of flying people back and forth. I presume Korean construction workers aren't necessarily fluent in English (I don't know how education there works) so there'd be some language friction. You might as well hire undocumented construction workers who are already in the country (which they have also been doing apparently).
- mindslight 1y ago
  Okay, so let's not focus on strict application of the rules then. One of the main themes of Trumpism is using strict applications of rules as a cudgel to hurt people, and feel justified while doing so. But this is Hacker News, right? We understand bending of the rules to build things. And the overriding constructive public policy goal here is reindustrialization. To the extent LG is taking shortcuts with proper visa paperwork out of administrative expedience, that likely points to things that need to be reformed about the rules. To the extent that LG has been doing things directly contrary to public policy but now enforcement is stepping up, it would be better to address those things gradually without interrupting the project. Maybe still a surprise raid to catalog who is doing exactly what on the site, but then gradual "these guy needs to go, you've got two weeks to find local replacements" etc. The only point to doing a massive raid, arrest, detainment, and deportation is the spectacle.
dizlexic 1y ago
I would honestly ask why you believe people of privilege should be allowed to ignore laws that are inconvenient? You'll get no argument that our immigration laws aren't broken from me, but isn't it the purview of congress to change them? I'd even go a step further and say this is the root of the dysfunction in America. The belief that inconvenient laws should / can just be bypassed by a strong executive instead of placing pressure on a congress that is afraid to make any hard choices.
- mindslight 1y ago
  I don't subscribe to the "privilege" paradigm because it just feels like an emotional appeal for attacking anyone that has some modicum of resources or power, and that feels exactly what your first sentence is doing. I agree with where you're coming from about congress and the executive. The difference is analogous to punching down vs punching up. If the system wants buy in (ie a mandate) from individuals, then it's the responsibility of the system (ie the politicians) to make a sensible set of rules. Take a look at drug criminalization - it's only the very myopic complaining about things like individuals not following nonsensical drug laws. A multinational corporation obviously sits somewhere in the middle, which requires applying equitable judgement (hence why I called out the "privilege" label as a toxic paradigm). It sure feels like this is the government crushing what is otherwise mostly desirable behavior, behavior directly in line with the current administration's purported overall goals. And at any rate, the situation certainly could have been treated with a much lighter touch.

alephnerd 1y ago

I HATE Trump, and was very closely aligned with the previous administration. Even in the Biden admin we pushed back on Taiwanese companies like TSMC attempting something similar, as well as Hyundai after they were discovered using undocumented child labor to build one of their EV factories. This exact raid would have happened even if Harris was in the White House right now. > I thought the constructive goal was to restore US industrial capacity and manufacturing jobs And deciding to almost exclusively use temporary Korean labor without the correct insurance and workman's comp contributions in order to set cement and lay pipe is adding American jobs? European, Japanese, and Taiwanese projects of similar scope haven't done similar shenanigans. > We understand bending of the rules to build things... That'll hold up in court when an employee is crushed by falling steel while building a battery plant, like what happened at this Hyundai plant right before the raid (which the Guardian reports seems to have been done by OSHA inspectors annoyed at Hyundai's relative impunity) [0] > I thought the constructive goal was to restore US industrial capacity and manufacturing jobs "The children yearn for the mines" [0] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-georgia-hyundai-south-korea https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-...

triceratops 1y ago
> use temporary Korean labor to set cement and lay pipe is adding American jobs Media reporting on this has been kinda slipshod. Is that what actually happened? I was under the impression they were setting up imported machinery. It seems grossly inefficient to me to send workers on B1s to pour cement.
- alephnerd 1y ago
  > Is that what actually happened Yes. Manufacturing speicifc news agencies have reported on this [0]. Korean and American unions have united to condemn the ICE raids [1], but that doesn't absolve Hyundai-LG for committing labor and immigration abuse. > It seems grossly inefficient to me to send workers on B1s to pour cement. It is WAY cheaper than paying the right insurance and US construction salairies ($20k-40k in SK versus $70k-90k in the Georgia). > It's not just salaries though is it? There's hotels/accommodation, flights, per diems That's at most $10k post-tax. Paying $70k-90k means also paying around an additional 0.25-0.5x in employer contributions depending on the state in the US. By bringing in labor from Korea, they are being paid in Won, covered by insurance IN Korea (not the US), and all workman's comp has been paid IN Korea (not the US). > so there'd be some language friction Yep, but most of management and the chain in-between in Hyundai (and most Korean companies) are always Koreans or Korean diaspora. This has been a major friction in Vietnam and India as well, where Korean companies like Hyundai-Kia and Samsung would segregate Korean nationals and Korean origin personnel from locals (eg. Separate canteens, separate accommodations, separate per diems) even if they were doing the same work at the same level. Samsung's chip design office in Gurgaon is notorious for this. > which you edited later to remove) I can't reply, so I'm in the process of replying via edits. I accidentally deleted it during the editing process [0] - https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/georgia-hyundai-jobsite-raid-ice-construction/759629/ https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/georgia-hyundai-jobsi... [1] - https://uaw.org/kmwu-and-uaw-joint-statement-we-stand-united-against-all-attacks-restricting-the-rights-of-workers/ https://uaw.org/kmwu-and-uaw-joint-statement-we-stand-united...
  - triceratops 1y ago
    > Even Korean unions united with the UAW to condemn Hyundai-LG for this The statement has a vague mention of the company forcing the workers to shoulder "visa risks". One sentence out of 5 paragraphs. Most of the condemnation in that statement is about the actual raid. Even UAW, an American union, thought that went too far. > It is WAY cheaper than paying the right insurance and US construction salairies ($20k-40k in SK) It's not just salaries though is it? There's hotels/accommodation, flights, per diems. The churn of flying people back and forth. I presume Korean construction workers aren't necessarily fluent in English (I don't know how education there works) so there'd be some language friction. You might as well hire undocumented construction workers who are already in the country (which they have also been doing apparently).
mindslight 1y ago
Okay, so let's not focus on strict application of the rules then. One of the main themes of Trumpism is using strict applications of rules as a cudgel to hurt people, and feel justified while doing so. But this is Hacker News, right? We understand bending of the rules to build things. And the overriding constructive public policy goal here is reindustrialization. To the extent LG is taking shortcuts with proper visa paperwork out of administrative expedience, that likely points to things that need to be reformed about the rules. To the extent that LG has been doing things directly contrary to public policy but now enforcement is stepping up, it would be better to address those things gradually without interrupting the project. Maybe still a surprise raid to catalog who is doing exactly what on the site, but then gradual "these guy needs to go, you've got two weeks to find local replacements" etc. The only point to doing a massive raid, arrest, detainment, and deportation is the spectacle.

dizlexic 1y ago

I would honestly ask why you believe people of privilege should be allowed to ignore laws that are inconvenient? You'll get no argument that our immigration laws aren't broken from me, but isn't it the purview of congress to change them? I'd even go a step further and say this is the root of the dysfunction in America. The belief that inconvenient laws should / can just be bypassed by a strong executive instead of placing pressure on a congress that is afraid to make any hard choices.

mindslight 1y ago
I don't subscribe to the "privilege" paradigm because it just feels like an emotional appeal for attacking anyone that has some modicum of resources or power, and that feels exactly what your first sentence is doing. I agree with where you're coming from about congress and the executive. The difference is analogous to punching down vs punching up. If the system wants buy in (ie a mandate) from individuals, then it's the responsibility of the system (ie the politicians) to make a sensible set of rules. Take a look at drug criminalization - it's only the very myopic complaining about things like individuals not following nonsensical drug laws. A multinational corporation obviously sits somewhere in the middle, which requires applying equitable judgement (hence why I called out the "privilege" label as a toxic paradigm). It sure feels like this is the government crushing what is otherwise mostly desirable behavior, behavior directly in line with the current administration's purported overall goals. And at any rate, the situation certainly could have been treated with a much lighter touch.