[PhantomHour]

> But every article I've read on this makes no statement about whether any of these hundreds of people were actually working without an appropriate visa

This is because ICE is being particularly tight lipped about those details.

The New York Times got their hands on the records for 11 detainees. 6 on B1/B2 visas. 4 on 90-day waivers. 1 Unknown.

ICE claims visa violations, but the records do not state what work the detainees were actually doing. This is especially relevant for the B1 visas, which do permit certain business activities (including applicable ones for this situation; Meetings, trainings, "installation, service, and repair of foreign-bought machinery".

Of particular note is that in one case (out of these 11), ICE's records state there was no visa violation. The worker was deported anyway, forced into a "voluntary" departure.

(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/business/economy/hyundai-...)

Personal opinion: The degree to which hyundai may or may not have violated the law or operated within previously-tolerated gray areas remains to be seen. But the actions of ICE here are not those of a competent government organisation.

There should be clear records, they should be able to readily answer press questions. And yet they don't.

Worse still is that one person deported despite there being, even by ICE's own admission, no visa violation. Hard to assume good faith in incomplete or withheld records with such shit going on.

And what are other foreign companies to do with this? "Move your manufacturing to America! Oh btw even if you follow all laws to the letter a local chud may deport your workers for being not white enough and ruin the entire project" is an interesting sales pitch.

[lazide]

The point is not to be effective (at the stated goals), or follow the laws, or be competent at following the laws.

The goal is to ‘look tough’ for the base, demonstrate the power to act without having to follow the laws, and overall - inspire fear. To extract concessions and inspire fear based loyalty.

The weirdest part to me is that people still don’t seem to understand this?

[LexiMax]

> The weirdest part to me is that people still don’t seem to understand this?

It's possible to understand this perfectly and yet prefer to try and argue a more reasonable interpretation, hoping whoever you're talking to won't pick up on bad faith.

What I really don't get is what makes them so convinced that the state apparatus they're such a fan of won't be turned on them? Even if you look like you belong, say the right things, hold the right opinions, you never know when you're going to accidentally get on the bad side of someone who is willing to tell a convincing lie or has connections.

They're either not the brightest bulb in the shed, or they're not actually from the US and have no skin in the game.

[xtiansimon]

> “The weirdest part to me is that people still don’t seem to understand this?”

The weirdest part will be any middle class worker who doesn’t later say, _I was a supporter, because I believed he would bring back manufacturing and jobs. I was wrong._ Everyone else is a cultist or wealthy.

[tim333]

I had to look up chud. Seems to originate from a movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEqNiFAhpSU&t=63s

[3D30497420]

I imagine their argument will be "Well, they should have hired Americans", even if that is completely infeasible.

Then, when these places stay poor, they'll blame foreign governments, Democrats, "bureaucrats in DC", "woke" policies, etc. Rinse and repeat.

[ivan_gammel]

Their argument was Trump personally delaying the departure by one day to ask if anyone wants to stay and train American workers. I.e. they understand they messed up, but don’t want to admit any mistake.

[FirmwareBurner]

> "Well, they should have hired Americans", even if that is completely infeasible

Who determined it is infeasible and how was it determined? Show me the data and the process that lead to this conclusion. It's a car assembly plant, not a semiconductor fab that requires niche advanced degrees only available in Taiwan.

Surely the required labor can be found across a country of 300 million people, or easily trained from other adjacent fields that have lost workers due to economic driven redundancies or who want to switch careers for whatever reason.

>Then, when these places stay poor, they'll blame foreign governments, Democrats, "bureaucrats in DC"

Why shouldn't they be blamed? They're the ones telling their voters at election times that there'll be a factory opening where they live and then the voters rejoice and think "woo-hoo, more jobs for us" but then the bureaucrats are like "well, actually, those jobs will go towards imported foreigners, not to you, because you're not qualified enough or some other bullshit reason" and then the voters will clap back with "well I'm a product of YOUR education system mf-er, so it's YOUR fault that I'm not qualified enough". If you were them, wouldn't you be pissed too?

Funny how HN likes to criticize and gaslight people that it should be societally acceptable that foreigners being brough to take manufacturing jobs from locals, but they throw a hissy rage fit when H1Bs are being brough to the US to take their cushy tech jobs. Hypocrisy much?

Edi: love the empty angry downvotes with no explanation and no counter arguments simply because my detailed argument goes against the narrative. Means I'm right.