This photo shows workers returning to South Korea on Sept. 12 after a week of detention in the US as a result of an immigration raid at a battery plant site in Georgia. (Im Se-jun/The Korea Herald)
This photo shows workers returning to South Korea on Sept. 12 after a week of detention in the US as a result of an immigration raid at a battery plant site in Georgia. (Im Se-jun/The Korea Herald)

The first session of a working group meeting on US visas for South Korean nationals will be held in Washington on Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul Monday.

The working group session is aimed at "discussing ways to streamline the immigration process of (those working for) South Korean companies investing in the US, and to improve the US visa system," the ministry said in a note to reporters.

Seoul and Washington agreed to set up a working group discussion after Seoul raised the need to fix the system in the wake of a massive immigration raid at a battery plant construction site in Georgia that led to the detention of 317 Koreans in early September.

Jung Ki-hong, government representative for Korean nationals overseas protection and consular affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will lead Seoul’s negotiating team, with Kevin Kim, a senior official for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the US State Department, serving as his counterpart.

Additionally, the delegation from South Korea will also reportedly comprise officials from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

Wi Sung-lac, national security adviser to President Lee Jae Myung, told reporters Monday that Seoul will work to make some clarification to make the US visa policy predictable for South Korean workers.

"We may push to create a new US visa category (for the workers) and to work on visas for the workers in specialty occupations, but first we need to negotiate further," Wi said, adding he was unclear about the timeframe for negotiations.

This photo shows a chartered flight carrying South Korean workers returning to their home country on Sept. 12 after a week of detention in the US as a result of an immigration raid at a battery plant site in Georgia. (Pool photo via Yonhap)
This photo shows a chartered flight carrying South Korean workers returning to their home country on Sept. 12 after a week of detention in the US as a result of an immigration raid at a battery plant site in Georgia. (Pool photo via Yonhap)

This is the latest development following US immigration authorities' Sept. 4 raid on the site of a battery plant that was being set up under a joint venture between Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution.

All but one of the detained Koreans chose to return to South Korea on a Sept. 12 chartered flight paid for by the firms, ending their time in US detention. At the time,

Seoul officials stressed a need to narrow differences in the understanding of the B-1 visa for temporary workers in the US, which most of the South Korean detainees held at the time of the raid.

"Till then, these (differences in the understanding) had not been problematic, but US authorities (this time) raised the complaint and caused a problem," Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff of the presidential office, said at the time as he greeted the workers at Incheon Airport. "We must remove the seeds of distrust in order for South Korea to invest with confidence."

First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo, who accompanied Kang at the airport, said the working group talks will be launched to discuss visa issues in the mid- to long-term.

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, who went to the US for the United Nations General Assembly, held talks with US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau in New York on Friday to discuss the swift launch of the working group session as a follow-up measure in the aftermath of the raid, according to the ministry.


consnow@heraldcorp.com