South Korea says a charter plane carrying South Korean workers will leave Atlanta at Thursday noon

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FOLKSTON, Ga. (AP) — A South Korean charter plane arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday to take home Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in Georgia last week. Its planned return the same day was canceled, and South Korea's Foreign Ministry later said the flight would take place Thursday at noon, without giving further details.

A total of 475 workers, more than 300 of them South Koreans, were rounded up in the Sept. 4 raid at the battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant. U.S. authorities released video showing some being shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists, causing shock and a sense of betrayal among many in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.

South Korea’s government later said it reached an agreement with the U.S. for the release of the workers.

South Korean TV footage showed the charter plane, a Boeing 747-8i from Korean Air, taking off at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul, and it landed in Atlanta on Wednesday morning.

The Foreign Ministry said the plane was not able to depart from the U.S. the same day, as South Korea wished, due to an unspecified reason involving the U.S. side.

During a visit to Washington on Wednesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and told him that his country's people were left with “big pains and shocks” because the video of the workers' arrests was publicly disclosed, his ministry said in a statement.

Cho called for the U.S. administration to help the workers leave as soon as possible — without being handcuffed — and to make sure they do not face problems in future reentry to the U.S., the statement said.

The workers were being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston, in southeast Georgia. South Korean media reported that they would be freed and bused 285 miles (460 kilometers) to Atlanta to take the charter plane. Three empty buses were parked at the detention center.

South Korean officials said they have been negotiating with the U.S. to win “voluntary” departures of the workers, rather than deportations that could result in making them ineligible to return to the U.S. for up to 10 years.

The workplace raid by the U.S. Homeland Security agency was its largest yet as it pursues its mass deportation agenda. The Georgia battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States.

Many South Koreans view the raid as a source of national disgrace and remain stunned by it. Only 10 days earlier, President Lee Jae Myung and U.S. President Donald Trump held their first summit in Washington, on Aug. 25. In late July, South Korea also promised hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments to reach a tariff deal.

Experts say Seoul is not likely to take any major retaliatory steps against the U.S., but the raid could become a source of tensions between the allies.

U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others entered legally but had expired visas or entered on visa waivers that prohibited them from working.

But South Korean experts and officials said Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s yearslong demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand industrial investments in the U.S.

South Korean companies have been relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers who are needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.

LG Energy Solution, which employed most of the detained workers, instructed its South Korean employees in the U.S. on B-1 or B-2 short-term visit visas not to report to work until further notice and told those with ESTAs to return home immediately.

During his meeting with Rubio, Cho proposed the creation of a joint South Korea-U.S. working group to introduce a new visa category for South Korean workers, according to his ministry.

Cho met the previous day with representatives of major Korean companies operating in the U.S. including Hyundai, LG and Samsung. Cho told them South Korean officials are in active discussions with U.S. officials and lawmakers about possible legislation to create a separate visa quota for South Korean professionals, according to the ministry.

Trump said this week that the workers “were here illegally” and that the U.S. needs to work with other countries to have their experts train U.S. citizens to do specialized work such as battery and computer manufacturing.

Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents several of the detained South Koreans, told The Associated Press that no company in the U.S. makes the machines used in the Georgia battery plant. So they had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site — work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do, he said.

The South Korea-U.S. military alliance, forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, has experienced ups and downs over the decades. But surveys have shown a majority of South Koreans support the alliance, as the U.S. deployment of 28,500 troops in South Korea and 50,000 in Japan has served as the backbone of the American military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

During a Cabinet Council meeting on Tuesday, Lee said he felt “big responsibility” over the raid and expressed hopes that the operations of South Korean businesses will not be infringed upon unfairly again. ___

Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung reported from Seoul, South Korea. Associated Press writer Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed.