Chicago – September 09, 2025
South Korea is dispatching its top diplomat to the United States as it tries to prevent swirling discontent over an immigration raid at a factory in Georgia from ballooning into a crisis that could do long-term damage to relations with its most important ally.
Foreign Affairs Minister Cho Hyun was scheduled to leave Monday evening local time for Washington, DC, officials in Seoul said.
Hours earlier, the government announced that some 300 South Koreans who were detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid last Thursday on the Hyundai-LG joint factory in southern Georgia will return to Korea on a chartered flight following negotiations with the US.
Korean Air on Tuesday confirmed one of the airline’s Boeing 747s will leave South Korea as early as Wednesday, assisting in the repatriation the detained South Koreans.
The B747-8I charter flight is set to depart Incheon International Airport, near Seoul, as early as Wednesday morning, bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Georgia.
The plane will leave carrying no passengers, and is capable of accommodating 368 people, a spokesperson for Korean Air said.
The raid was one of the largest by US immigration enforcement agencies in recent years. Images of workers, many of them Korean, being shackled and led away into detention have circulated widely across South Korea and sparked criticism at a time when the country is pouring multi-billion-dollar investments into the US, much of it at the behest of US President Donald Trump.
Last month South Korea business heavyweights including Korean Air and Hyundai unveiled multibillion-dollar deals in the United States following the summit between the two countries’ leaders.
The plant in Georgia, which is supposed to be operating next year, is a massive investment for the state and projected to employ up to 8,500 people when complete.
What the foreign minister’s role in the process would be was unclear, but the government of President Lee Jae Myung was trying to quickly contain simmering discontent in the country about how its nationals were being treated by US law enforcement.
