Self-Defeating Deportations

Federal agents detain Korean workers in Georgia (Fox News)

While the majority of Americans supports border control in some form, the manner in which the policy is executed threatens to erode that support. Alleged deportation abuses of migrants from south of the border gets all the (negative) publicity, but last week's actions against South Korean workers at a battery plant in Georgia is an unforced error by the Administration.

More than 300 South Korean workers were sent back to South Korea on Thursday after being arrested in an immigration raid on a battery factory next to the Hyundai plant. “This could significantly impact future direct investment in the U.S.,” [President Lee Jae Myung] said at a news conference. South Korean companies “can’t help hesitating a lot” about making new investments in the U.S. if their workers are liable to end up in detention facilities.

Companies often bring in skilled workers to get factories up and running and to train local staff. “It’s not like these are long-term workers,” Mr. Lee continued. “When you build a facility or install equipment at a plant, you need technicians, but the U.S. doesn’t have that workforce and yet they won’t issue visas to let our people stay and do the work.”

U.S. policies can conflict with each other: 1) peaceful containment of China requires strengthening relations with Asian countries like South Korea and india; 2) building up American manufacturing involves penalizing potential and actual allies with tariffs. Deporting South Korean workers when there are not enough skilled Americans to do the work is not only self-defeating but sours a relationship with an important ally.

Ordering the Georgia plant to hire American workers when there aren't any seems as foolish as California shutting down gasoline refineries and fossil-fuel energy plants before alternative-energy replacements are on line.