Presiding over an emergency meeting, the president confirmed that"over 300 of the 475 detainees are Korean."

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Kim Ji-yeon = Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun announced on the 6th that 475 people were detained by U.S. immigration authorities in a raid on the Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution plant in Georgia, and that over 300 of them were our citizens.

Minister Cho presided over a joint meeting of the headquarters and embassies of the Overseas Koreans Protection Headquarters held at the Government Complex Seoul on this day and said, “I am very concerned and feel a great sense of responsibility for the arrest of our citizens.”

Minister Cho explained that, considering the importance of the matter, he had established the Headquarters for Overseas Citizens Protection, with himself as its head, and that the headquarters and overseas missions had held meetings to quickly share relevant trends and review countermeasures.

In particular, President Lee Jae-myung said immediately after the incident became known,"I emphasized that the rights and interests of our citizens and the economic activities of companies investing in the U.S. should not be unfairly infringed upon during the U.S. law enforcement process," and "I directly instructed the U.S. Embassy and the Consulate General in Atlanta to make an all-out effort to quickly resolve the issue."

Accordingly, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jin-ah conveyed her concerns and regrets to Joseph Yoon, the Acting U.S. Ambassador to Korea, the previous day, and asked him to take special care to ensure that the legitimate rights and interests of our citizens are not violated.

Minister Cho said,"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will closely communicate with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, economic organizations, and other businesses to respond comprehensively," and asked the Korean Embassy in the U.S. and the Consulate General in Atlanta to continue communicating with local authorities to provide consular assistance promptly.

He continued,"We plan to discuss ways to quickly dispatch high-level officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headquarters to the scene, and if necessary, I will go to Washington myself to consult with the U.S. administration."

He added,"Through this meeting, we plan to share and review the details we have learned so far and examine how we will properly provide consular assistance in the future and what measures we will take."

This meeting was urgently called in response to the incident in which U.S. authorities arrested 475 Koreans and others during a crackdown on illegal immigrants at a local factory construction site of our company. Key officials, including First Vice Minister Park Yoon-joo, Second Vice Minister Kim Jin-ah, and the Minister of the Embassy in the U.S., attended the meeting.

On the 4th (local time), U.S. immigration authorities conducted a large-scale crackdown on illegal immigrants at the construction site of the Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution joint battery plant (HL-GA Battery Company) in Savannah, Georgia, arresting and detaining 475 people, including about 300 Koreans.