It was something he never could have imagined. While at work, he was suddenly chained up and dragged away, and it was only after eight days that he was finally released. Though he had committed no crime, he was forced to sign a pledge promising that he would “never commit a crime again.” For him, the U.S. had been a workplace just like Korea, but it had now turned into a nightmare.

On the afternoon of September 4 (local time), Mr. Kim was working at the construction site of the Hyundai Motor Group–LG Energy Solution joint battery plant in Georgia, when he and several colleagues were taken away by U.S. immigration authorities. His wrists were handcuffed, and he was shackled at the waist with chains. Since he had entered the U.S. on a short-term business visa (B-1), Kim thought he would be released quickly. But he was wrong.

Having returned to Korea on a Korean Air chartered flight on September 12, Kim spoke with The Kyunghyang Shinmun by phone on the 14th. “How can we trust the U.S. government’s claim that there will be ‘no disadvantage’ after being detained without committing a crime?” he said. “If the U.S. wants Korea to invest, it should at least create mechanisms for essential workers to be able to work there.” Kim and his colleagues had been taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Folkston. The first thing he noticed upon arrival was the double and triple layers of barbed-wire fences. About 70 people were housed in a single room. Their belongings and passports were confiscated.

Inside the room were 35 bunk beds, each spaced about one meter apart. Even then, there were not enough beds. Some had to sleep on mattresses on the floor, and others had no mattress at all and lay on bare bed frames. The air conditioning made the room cold, but there were no blankets. “I shivered under two towels and only managed to fall asleep at dawn,” Kim recalled of his first night.

The detention room was completely cut off from the outside. The windows were sealed with metal covers, and even the small window on the emergency exit had been painted over. The only view of the outside came through a tiny chip in the paint, no bigger than an ant hole.

The water and food were appalling.

When the drinking water dispenser in the room ran dry, someone opened the lid and found a spider floating inside. But when they reported it to a staff member, the response was a sneer: “A spider in the water? Well then, if you drink it, you’ll turn into Spider-Man.”

Detainees could be moved to two-person rooms once they were called in for questioning. “We craned our necks waiting in the room for our names, and when 20 names were called, everyone rushed to line up and go through registration,” Kim said. The interviews included questions like “What kind of work did you do in the U.S.?” and “Are you married?” On his fourth day in detention, Kim was transferred to a two-person cell. “Unlucky” detainees were transferred the day before release.

News from outside reached them only through CNN broadcasts on the facility’s television. It was not until the 7th that Kim met a Korean government official. “Until the rapid response team from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs arrived and had us sign documents for voluntary departure and charter flight boarding, we had no way of knowing what was happening outside. That was frustrating,” he said. He first met with a lawyer on the 10th.

Before being released, Kim and his colleagues were made to sign a document called “I-210.” The form stated that they “may not remain in the U.S.,” that “entering the U.S. illegally is a crime,” and that they “pledged not to attempt illegal reentry.” Some initially refused, asking, “Why should we admit guilt when we did nothing wrong?” They signed only after a Foreign Ministry official explained that “there would be no disadvantage.” Kim said, “Even if the governments reached an agreement, I don’t think I can feel at ease until I try reentering the U.S. with a visa and passing through immigration again.”