Exclusive: critics accuse ICE of ‘outrageous’ and ‘unlawful’ detention of Korean man
At least one of the Korean workers swept up in a massive immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor factory site in Georgia last week was living and working legally in the US, according to an internal federal government document obtained by the Guardian.
Officials then “mandated” that he agree to be removed from the US despite not having violated his visa.
The document shows that immigration officials are aware that someone with a valid visa was among the people arrested during the raid at the Hyundai factory and taken to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention for removal proceedings, where the people arrested remained on Tuesday before expected deportation flights back to South Korea.
Because money, sadly.
An automotive factory worker averages around $25/hour in the US, or an annual salary of around 50K.
An automotive factory worker in South Korea averages around 17,000 KRW/hour, or an annual salary of around 36 mil KRW, which is roughly $12/hour or 25K annual.
That says nothing about standard of living though, if those 50k are all going to highly priced health insurance, rent, and groceries, then you might be better off on the Korean salary.
South Korea is infamous for very high cost of living, especially considering the very low salaries.
You can check numbeo for more specific comparisons, but Seoul and Busan are only 20% and 30% cheaper in terms of cost of living compared to Atlanta GA, respectively. Not nearly enough to make up the salary difference.
The fact there there are migrant workers already tells you the situation. People’s behaviour generally follow economic incentives. There’s a reason why South Korea is struggling with emigration.
Yep I’m not well versed in the situation there, but I know for example with European countries it generally works out in our favour (as Europeans). That said, it still doesn’t account for the very real human cost of having to live in the US 😅