The workers, you’ll recall, included 317 South Koreans who had come to Georgia to help set up a new plant that belonged to the two South Korean manufacturing giants. Setting up a complex modern factory involves specialized skills, and Hyundai and LG couldn’t find such expertise in Georgia on the quick. There was urgency, too: Trump had just imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. imports from South Korea, and Seoul was eager to please the White House by showing how much its companies could invest in the United States. The notoriously long wait involved in getting a H-1B or similar work visa threatened to derail this effort. As reported by the New York Times, the South Koreans arrived in the United States on B-1 visas for short-term business visitors and the ESTA visa waiver program, which also allows short-term business visits.
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