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The first working-level meeting between South Korea and the U.S. since the "voluntary" deportation of over 300 South Korean workers, following a week-long detention earlier this month, aims to discuss ways to facilitate the entry of South Korean workers into the U.S. and address visa-related issues.
Ministry officials including those from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups are expected to hold talks with their U.S. counterparts from the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, and Labor, led by Kevin Kim, a senior official in the State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Their meeting comes after Seoul asked Washington to form a "working group" to come up with measures after some 317 South Korean workers, mostly LG Energy Solution staff, were forced to return home earlier this month after being detained for a week.
They had been working at a construction site for an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia and were caught in the largest single-site workplace raid in U.S. history by immigration authorities, as they were allegedly working without valid permits after entering the U.S. under either the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) or short-term B1 business visas.
* This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
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