According to articles I’ve read (i.e., im not expert), they had visas (or the electronic visa-free authorization) that allow for certain limited business purposes.

• Consult with business associates
• Attend a scientific, educational, professional, or business convention or conference
• Settle an estate
• Negotiate a contract

Performing regular work, like building a factory, is explicitly not allowed. From what I read, if a US firm buys equipment from a foreign company, they can have people with that visa class (b1) do installation, but it has to be explicitly arranged ahead of time. I’m not sure if that applies in this situation since it’s not a US firm on either side of the equation (unless there’s a separate business entity of Hyundai USA or something like that).

Honestly, this whole thing reads to me like a megacorporation not wanting to pay an outside firm to build their new factory when they already have contractors they have that relationship with, and they also didn’t want to shell out the money (and they didn’t have the legal basis) for the correct type of visas. They instead tried to get their contractors to perform work that shouldn’t be allowed and they expected to get away with it. Now that they’ve been caught, they are trying to get public opinion on their side by trying to connect what happened to their well paid engineers and technicians to what’s been happening to poor manual laborers who’ve literally walked to the US by themselves to escape violence created by the US’s own meddling.

I’m open to being wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Hyundai absolutely has the resources to have dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s to ensure this wouldn’t happen.

At least one had a visa (I assume a lot more but only read title saying worker had visa).

Then the fascist us nimrods said hey you can stay if you want to train americans to do your job. China said all workers come home. We can then discuss them coming back later… as if.

China? All Asians look the same eh?