How many foreign workers will be needed to meet the foreign investment targets set by the Trump Administration?
Using two cases of huge foreign company investment in manufacturing (Hyundai EV plant in Georgia and TSMC semi-conductor plants near Phoenix), it would appear, very very roughly, that for every $100 billion in foreign plant investment upwards of 1,000 foreign national temporary workers are on site at any one time, and perhaps multiples of that in individual head count over the course of multi-year projects from ground-braking to smooth operations The White House has announced investment commitments running in several trillions of dollars. At such a scale, many thousands of foreign nationals will be coming to help execute the investments. Foreign companies understandably want to use their own nationals for their special knowledge and work culture. American labor organizations want to keep these numbers low.
And the foreign firms will be working under pressure. Building construction and equipment installation and testing phases are tightly managed. Delays are costly.
Before visiting the Hyundai plant fiasco, there is a Taiwanese investment in the Phoenix area. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) broke ground in 2021 for two semi-conductor plants in the Phoenix area. The project will cost over $60 billion, of which the CHIPS Act is contributing $6.6 billion. Construction labor is over 10,000 workers. TSMC has tried to bring in 500 or so workers for the construction, using temporary work visas. Local building trades unions have objected.
TSMC has confirmed that some Taiwanese workers are there using E-2 visas. Nationwide, about 55,000 E-2 visas are issued per year for workers taking on temporary assignments (which can last over a year). The number of all Taiwanese on an E-2 visa is about 3,000. There are no reports of ICE inspections of the TSMC plants.
As for the fallout from the Hyundai raid, here is what the English language Korea Herald has reported.
“US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau [on September 14] voiced “deep regret” over the mass detention of Korean workers in the Sept. 4 immigration raid in Georgia. Landau met with South Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo. The Korea-US vice foreign ministerial meeting took place only two days after the return of 316 South Korean nationals on Friday [Sept 12], eight days after their detention during the immigration raid.
“Deputy Secretary Landau also expressed deep regret over the fact that this incident occurred and said that this incident should be used as a turning point for institutional improvement and for strengthening the (South) Korea–US relationship,” the Foreign Ministry in Seoul said in a Korean-language press statement.
At the beginning of the meeting, Park “expressed regret that not only the workers but also the Korean public had been deeply shocked by this incident, referring to the unfair treatment that Korean company workers had to endure in US detention facilities,” according to the ministry. “Vice Minister Park strongly urged the US side to take concrete measures to prevent a recurrence and improve the system in order to ease public anxiety,” the ministry’s press statement read.
B