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So, you’ve probably heard about the hundreds of Koreans rounded up by ICE at the Hyundai/LG plant last week.
I have nothing much to add - if they’re truly here illegally, they should go - but I wanted to tell you about the time the Koreans deported me, in 2019.
When you apply for or renew a visa in Korea, you quickly realize any questions you have will be answered differently, depending on who you speak to. I got some bad advice and found out quickly.
I was visiting an old friend in a coastal town when my phone rang on Christmas Eve. It was the Immigration Department wondering where I was. I was informed that my visa had expired the day before and that I had to leave the country within 36 hours. I also had to speak with an immigration officer at the airport before getting on my Christmas flight.
I booked a flight, went back to the apartment and packed my bags. At the airport, I explained my position, but I had to sign an admission of guilt before boarding the plane.
I was required to wait six months before applying to re-enter the Land of the Morning Calm. Not only that, I was required to resubmit all original paperwork, including another FBI background check. And I had to go to the Korean Consulate in Dallas to reapply and to speak with a Korean official to receive permission, which ultimately I got. There may have been a fine, but I’m a bit hazy on that.
It was frustrating, but I wasn’t mistreated. Countries have borders and visa requirements for a reason.
Discussion (32)
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My paternal grandfather was a Scots/Irish merchant sailor who worked in the engine room (yes, as with many ethnic groups, the stereotype has a great deal of truth in it) and jumped ship while docked in New York in 1919. Somehow (the details are hazy) he was caught, deported to then-still-semi-Imperial Canada, where he was, fairly soon, able to legally re-enter by around 1927. He became a citizen in 1934.
Part of the reason the authorities were relatively forgiving was he was a steam worker when that was still a valued skill. It was the end of a century of steam power, which wasn't done yet. NYC's Consolidated Edison, to be my parents' employer, was also my grandfather's and great-grandfather's as well. (Yes, once grandad was legally aboard, he brought over his father to join him in unloading coal in freezing and sweating weather from river barges, feeding them into boilers, and spinning up electrical generators.)
It's appropriate that he was held to account. Obviously, I'm grateful he made the cut anyway. But it's given me an inoculation against the idea that immigration enforcement is inherently racist.
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I looked at the linked article, and it, like most news reports about the deported Koreans, is misleading. The people deported did NOT work at the Hyundai/LG battery plant, because the plant is still under construction. The deported workers were employed by multiple construction companies, and their subcontractors. We have all heard of construction sites across America losing huge percentages of their workers, due to many illegal workers (not necessarily the contractors' fault, due to thousands of illegals having fake documents) being found and detained by ICE. So do not tar the factory owners, since they are not at fault here. The construction industry in America has been hugely impacted by the crackdown on illegal workers, but this does leave openings for legal American workers to return to construction sites.
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And that article is from a major Korean site, with a pretty conservative slant. Tells you how lazy journalists can be.
Sometimes it seems like the internet journalists all steal their stories from one gumshoe, and then alter as they see fit.
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I have no immigrant stories. Most of my family was here before the War. That's the Revolutionary War. Maybe even King Philip's War. The one exception I know of was one great-great-grandfather who came from somewhere in the Germanies. (It was many countries back then.) I know that he immigrated before 1865, since he served in that war, but do not have any stories that were handed down. I do not even know if his wife came with, or he married her here. Given he had been here for at least twenty years before my great-grandmother was born, I would guess he married after immigrating. But I could be wrong.
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Just did a little Internet sleuthing, and my great-great-grandmother was born in Assumption, Illinois in 1849. It might not have been called that then. Anyway, she was not an immigrant, either, so that leaves great-great-grampa whose name is not even spelled correctly on his gravestone. Must have wanted to save on carving that last letter.
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