Leaked Ice document shows worker detained in Hyundai raid had valid visa

61 garrettdreyfus 47 9/10/2025, 1:45:27 PM theguardian.com ↗

Comments (47)

bbreier · 6h ago
It’s unfortunate that many Americans are comfortable with this guilty even if proven innocent approach to justice
mindslight · 4h ago
Ultimately it comes down to the utter lack of accountability we've had for decades. Our system has been rotting, the elites claim everything is fine as they look at the numbers, especially their own numbers, go up up up. The average person's frustrations have built up to the point that people just want to see other people hurt for a semblance of accountability. See the outpouring of support for Luigi.

So then along comes a new demagogue, covers his face in orange makeup to signal he's not part of that elite ingroup, talks like he's mentally handicapped to make it seem like he lacks the capacity to lie, and claims to care about the plights of the common person. All the things that politicians previously wouldn't talk about, rightly or wrongly. "This one is different, and he really hears us!". But then rather than any sort of reform, he merely directs that anger at other powerless scapegoats - a series of revolving spectacles that leave supporters with no time for it to set in just how much they're being had, or the wide trail of societal damage in his wake.

I keep waiting for even half these people who claim to care about the Constitution and individual liberty to realize how their country is being mortally wounded. How every day they waffle and continue give this societal arsonist a pass, how much worse off our country will be. But being eternally hopeful that people will come around to seeing the truth is one of my personal flaws. So the cynical part of me is just waiting for Trump to start supporting gun control again.

jimbo808 · 6h ago
> From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.”

The article worded the whole thing very carefully, in a way to me is intentionally misleading. The director mandated that the visa holder be labeled as a voluntary departure. That could simply mean the person decided he would return, and was allowed to do so, and the director simply informed whoever filled out the paperwork that this was a voluntary departure. There is nothing in the article that actually indicates the person was forced to leave the country with a valid visa.

The fact that they dance around this tells me that this article is bullshit. And knowing what I know about The Guardian, it almost certainly is.

elygre · 6h ago
If I was rounded up in an ICE raid, I would enthusiastically depart the country, even if I was fully compliant with every rule.

That’s to say that a voluntary departure doesn’t mean no harm was caused.

jimbo808 · 6h ago
But if harm was caused, The Guardian would probably be more explicit about it. They wouldn't beat around the bush in how they word it.
rich_sasha · 4h ago
If Ice detained me, kept me in kafkaesque isolation, shuttled me around for a few hours from one detention centre to another, but did no other harm, I'd probably also be happy to GTFO, and might even concede no harm was done.
mindslight · 2h ago
Baseless detainment and coercion, kicking a law-abiding America-contributing worker out of the country, interrupting the building of a new domestic factory, and making an allied country wary of working with us are the harms. You're just ignoring them, because you've been propagandized to think the victims deserved it.
jimbo808 · 42m ago
That is a very different issue than what the article implies. The implication of the article was that something very illegal happened. What you're implying is not necessarily illegal, but I agree it is harmful.
pavel_lishin · 6h ago
At least one, according to the document.

I'm curious how many more will turn out to have been working legally.

quamserena · 6h ago
It's a bit more complicated than that. They all had valid (at the time) visas, but some may have been in violation of the requirements. South Korean companies couldn't get H1-B visas so they instead used VWP or B1/B2 visas meant for tourism and short-term business (conferences, negotiation, etc.). These visas don't allow certain kinds of work, so it depends what they were actually doing at the plant. From the article it sounds like that ICE agent thinks at least that one worker wasn't doing any proscribed work. In a sane world, an immigration court would look at the evidence and decide if the visa requirements had been violated. But instead we're just summarily deporting people.

https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/workers-say-k...

elygre · 6h ago
The article says that the ICE agent thinks the worker was compliant with visa terms:

«From statements made and queries in law enforcement databases, [redacted] has not violated his visa; however, the Atlanta Field Office Director has mandated [redacted] be presented as a Voluntary Departure. [Redacted] has accepted voluntary departure despite not violating his B1/B2 visa requirements.»

quamserena · 54m ago
I read that statement as saying that no violations are currently on the record, but not precluding that the requirements might currently be being violated.
deepthunder · 6h ago
Do we know WHO ordered this ICE hit?

Because this is a clown show of Epic proportions. Those guys were there to set up a factory for MAGA people to work at.

This stunt has ignorance and stupidity stamped all over it.

pavel_lishin · 4h ago
buyucu · 6h ago
very likely all of them
FuriouslyAdrift · 4h ago
B1/B2 visas are routinely violated by companies. These are not immigrant visas but temporary visitor visas for the purposes of attending meetings, etc.

I think the shock from Hyundai is that violating these visas have been standard practice for so long that enforcement was not expected.

JohnFen · 7h ago
Honestly, I'd be very surprised if that didn't happen. We live in a nation where even US citizens are getting arrested by ICE. Nobody is safe.
buyucu · 6h ago
Of course they did. A company like Hyundai that depends on government incentives is not going to take stupid risks with visas and work permits.
chrisco255 · 6h ago
They had over 300 illegal workers in that plant: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj07jzgve45o
pavel_lishin · 6h ago
ICE said that all of them were here on invalid visas, which is clearly untrue based on the posted article.

At this point, if an ICE agent told me it was a sunny day, I'd open my umbrella.

OgsyedIE · 6h ago
The US says they had over 300 illegals. Last time I checked, the US was not an omniscient teller of truth.
rrobukef · 6h ago
That is not what the article says.
buyucu · 6h ago
I doubt it. 300 people were detained, but not clear information in the public whether or not they were there legally.
mindslight · 6h ago
I'm curious to see how the societal suicide cultists rationalize this directly harmful "enforcement" action versus the supposed goal of rebuilding US manufacturing. Construction workers and engineering expertise are required for building factories. Especially with advanced technologies, we're playing catch up in expertise and thus reliant on foreign engineers to bootstrap our local talent (like what China did for the past two decades). And while the construction workers could be domestic citizens, the rest of the world isn't going to stop and wait for us for the years it takes to reorganize our economy and train them.
tclancy · 6h ago
I've bad news for you, they seem ok with it: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-polit...
mindslight · 6h ago
She's just one nutjob figurehead.

I'm talking about the larger number of people who supported, and are seemingly still supporting the deranged figureheads. When you examine the details, none of these policies actually benefit America - and doubly so with the incompetent execution. Yet as the results become increasingly undeniable, the supporters are twisting themselves into ever-tighter knots trying to stay in that fictional universe.

quxbar · 6h ago
Not just stop and wait, the intention is that the world will fully start to spin backwards and reverse the flow of time until post-WW2 abundance returns. All that's needed is the right cargo cult of American values.
farceSpherule · 6h ago
Ah... Another biased article from the Guardian.

When ICE conducts these large scale raids, they do no stand there and check people as they are arresting them. They round up everyone, arrest them, and then sort out everyone's status after the fact.

knodi123 · 6h ago
> and then sort out everyone's status after the fact.

Did they do that? Or did they throw out the ones with valid visas too? (hint: It was the latter. Details are in the article.)

The bigger problem is that they "invalidate" your visa post-facto, on a whim, for whatever they want. Attend a political protest? Have a 20 year old bad check on your record despite having lived here for 50 years, since you were a young child? Embarrass a politician? I've seen all of those and more result in a legal immigrant having their visas cancelled and then thrown in jail until they can be deported.

papercrane · 6h ago
That doesn't make it sound better. Generally "arrest them all and sort it out later" sounds like a 4th amendment violation.
salawat · 5h ago
As far as this administration is concerned, lawful immigrants aren't citizens, and due process is what they say it is. Til SCOTUS nuts up, that won't change.
mindslight · 5h ago
This does not mean it is not a 4th amendment violation. The Supreme Council may declare what's legally executable, but they don't define the truth.
nerdjon · 6h ago
and... thats a good thing?!?

Honestly I am not sure the point you are trying to make. In what world is that at all ok?

You know damn well that if they raided a largely white work site people would be up in arms (people are already up in arms, but who would be up in arms would be different). But clearly its fine since they are not white, perfectly normal to detain people before making sure they should be detained.

itsrobreally · 6h ago
That's commonly known as "illegal search and seizure"
messe · 6h ago
It's biased to think it's bad to arrest innocent people?
farceSpherule · 5h ago
You people realize that this was a month's long investigation and that the raid was approved by a federal judge?

ICE did not simply show up and start arresting people.

nerdjon · 4h ago
So you be perfectly fine being arrested for doing nothing wrong and being somewhere completely legally just because there was a "month's long investigation" (whatever that means in this administration...).
kccoder · 3h ago
May you one day be on the receiving end of the system of justice you claim to be trustworthy, prudent, and impartial.
messe · 4h ago
And despite all that prep they still arrested innocent people.
farceSpherule · 2m ago
JFC I am done with this site. It is like an echo chamber, reminiscent of Reddit.
mindslight · 6h ago
I guess we're now calling a perspective of individual liberty "biased" ?
rokkamokka · 6h ago
Like Mr Garcia?
Jgoauh · 6h ago
Yikesies
normalaccess · 5h ago
Although unfortunate this falls within the margin of error for such events. I hope everything gets resolved but a dragnet will cause a few false positives.

Just the same as if the cops bust a party where there is under age drinking, one or two people might be old enough but you can't tell until you process everyone.

And this wouldn't be the chaos it is if the border wasn't a free for all in the first place.

carefulfungi · 5h ago
I'm just glad they survived the long swim from South Korea to the US-Mexico border.
normalaccess · 26m ago
Here is the breakdown for illegal immigration by country of origin:

  By region:
  Mexico + Central America collectively made up 68% (~9.3 million)
  South America – ~12% (~1.7 million)
  Asia – ~6% (~851,000)
  Europe, Canada, Oceania – ~7% (~896,000)
  Caribbean – ~4% (~575,000)
  Africa – ~3% (~415,000)

  Source: migrationpolicy.org
Simulacra · 5h ago
I think that that's the crux of the issue: there was a conscientious driven effort to remove immigration barriers, but it could not be controlled, it could not be properly evaluated, and it became misery for everyone involved.