ICE has been widely accused of working on internal quotas. It's likely that they just don't care. They found foreigners working, so into the pens they go. The fact that these are engineers brought in to supervise construction doesn't enter into the picture.
In fairness, it shouldn’t. I think it is acceptable that the foreign workers have valid US work visas and can demonstrate that. Maybe constitution plays sometimes fast and loose with work visas, but that does not automatically make it ok.
I have worked abroad many times and work permits were always under heavy scrutiny by my own company, to the degree that we send one unhappy soul home mid week because some regulations were not met and he came back week smiling because he got a pay rise as comparable rated as local was a requirement.
The problem is, US Visa Waiver Program do explicitly allow business trips using "tourist" "visa"(it's not a visa, it's a waiver. So you won't even have a visa. You also won't be a "tourist", you're a "visitor" under VWP). So it's completely normal for them to be totally unable to demonstrate anything issued or approved by the US government whatsoever other than the oval stamp. They wouldn't even have a visa, and it's legal, as far as how the laws and regulations and official guidance read. I haven't heard that's changed, at least yet.
>Some crossed into the US illegally; some had visa waivers and were prohibited from working; (Steven Schrank, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge)
If the visa waiver suddenly no longer allows working business trips to the USA this is huge news. The terms of the waiver explicitly state it's allowed but it seems not in practice.
This is a definite "get out now" to anyone on a ESTA in the USA right now. Attending a conference, trade show or consulting on a build out of battery plant?" Get out now.
Have you read the requirements? Business visas or ESTA waivers have never allowed "work", there is nothing sudden about it. You can attend conferences and trade shows and have meetings. You can not "work" though.
I'm not an immigration lawyer so I don't know exactly what the requirements cover and what they don't. You are not allowed to "engage in active employment", but I have been permitted in paid for by my employer to attend meetings with company colleagues which is apparently okay.
I imagine a Korean engineer or project manager visiting to meet colleagues and inspect the site should be okay on a business visa or waiver. One who was there working on plans or overseeing construction might not be. You would hope the company had carefully checked these things.
The ICE agents have an overly strict and often incorrect interpretation of visa law. It wouldn’t be the first time this week where they decided to deport someone without adequate cause (and tourists aren’t really guaranteed due process).
So I completely agree on principle. But nonetheless the political job being done by DHS/ICE is not to uniformly and fairly scrutinize all visa holders in the interest of justice. They're supposed to be locking up the "illegals" constantly being held up as an enemy class by the ruling regime, and in practice that means "Latin American laborers", and not "Korean engineers".
No one was sold on throwing international professionals in jail just for showing up to do a job they took in good faith. That's clearly wrong, in a way that rounding up the "bad" people isn't. And so it shows up the horrifying implications of current policy.
The obvious goal is not to police illegal immigration but to purge the US of as many immigrants as possible and halt immigration in general so that "native born Americans" can get all of the jobs they think immigrants (and "DEI" hires - it's so difficult not to read all of this as code for "not white") have "stolen" from them. The ham-fisted arbitrariness and cruelty is the point.
Ya, but it is sad in both cases. Sad for the South Koreans that are unfairly being accused of working illegally, and sad for the un-documented immigrants who are exploited at both ends by Republicans (they run the construction companies so take profit in their work, and then they use them for political advantage via scare tactics).
