South Korean Leader Lee Jae-Myung Presses US Senators for Visa Reforms, Defence Support

(SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA) — South Korean President Lee Jae-myung pressed a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators on April 2, 2026 to speed up US visa reforms and backed a wider South Korean defence role, tying both issues to the future of Korean investment and workers in the United States.

Lee raised the visa issue as Seoul also pursues a plan to regain wartime operational control from the United States by 2030, a shift he argued would make South Korea more self-reliant and ease demands on Washington.

The talks brought immigration policy and military coordination into the same diplomatic conversation, with Lee urging changes that would give Korean professionals a more stable path to live and work in the United States while South Korea expands its role in the alliance.

According to the presidential Blue House, Lee told the delegation: “For strategic investments in the United States to proceed smoothly, shocking incidents like last year’s [September 2025] detention of Koreans in Georgia must not recur. Efforts to improve the U.S. visa system must accelerate so that the residence conditions of Korean workers in the United States can be guaranteed more stably.”

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, addressed the defence side of the discussion in a diplomatic readout. “Efforts toward the [wartime] operational control transfer are making progress but need to be underpinned by the ability to respond effectively to crises,” she said.

Those remarks came days after a March 30, 2026 update in the USCIS Newsroom, which reaffirmed a hard line on screening and enforcement. USCIS said: “Since taking office, President Trump has prioritized national security and public safety by implementing a series of executive orders. that mandate strict screening and vetting of foreign nationals seeking entry or immigration benefits.”

Lee’s push centered on the Partner with Korea Act, H.R. 4687, legislation that would create a new E-4 visa category for South Korean professionals. The bill proposes 15,000 highly skilled work visas annually for South Korean nationals with specialized education or expertise.

Congress has referred the measure to the House Committee on the Judiciary for the 2025-2026 session. If enacted, it would give South Korean professionals a dedicated visa route similar to the E-3 visa for Australians and allow them to bypass the oversubscribed and lottery-based H-1B system.

That proposal has taken on more weight in Seoul after a worksite crackdown in Georgia became a diplomatic flashpoint. On September 4, 2025, federal agents carried out the largest single-site worksite enforcement operation in DHS history at a Hyundai Motor Group/LG Energy Solution facility in Ellabell, Georgia.

Authorities detained approximately 475 workers, including over 300 South Korean nationals. Many were on B-1/B-2 visa waivers or had expired status.

For Lee, the episode linked immigration enforcement directly to economic planning. South Korea has pledged a $450 billion investment package in the United States across shipbuilding, semiconductors, and EVs, and he has tied the success of those projects to “stable residency conditions” for the Korean engineers needed to build and run them.

That connection helps explain why visa policy featured so prominently in a meeting that also covered alliance management. South Korea wants to expand its defence role while protecting the movement of the workforce that supports its industrial presence in the United States.

Lee reiterated Seoul’s goal of regaining OPCON by 2030. South Korea has also committed to raising defense spending to 3.5% of GDP to support that transition.

The OPCON transfer has long stood as a marker of how much military responsibility Seoul can assume under the alliance. In this round of talks, it also became part of a broader argument that a country taking on more of its own defence should receive more favorable immigration treatment for its citizens working on strategic projects in the United States.

Shaheen’s comment suggested that Washington still views crisis response capability as central to the timeline. Her readout did not present the transfer as complete or automatic, but as a process advancing alongside demands for readiness.

The immigration side of the discussion reflected a narrower but immediate business concern. Korean firms operating in the United States have often relied on B-1 visas or the K-ETA waiver framework for engineers, managers, and other staff traveling to support projects, even though those routes carry strict limits on actual labor.

That has left companies exposed to enforcement risk when personnel assignments blur the line between short-term business activity and work requiring a different status. The Partner with Korea Act would create a visa channel meant for specialized professionals and reduce that exposure.

For skilled workers, the change would amount to a dedicated legal pathway. For corporate personnel, it could lower the chance of administrative detentions tied to status problems or the use of short-term entry categories ill-suited to project work.

U.S.-based Korean firms such as Samsung, Hyundai, and LG would also gain more certainty in moving specialized staff to their American operations. That matters for what the source described as U.S. “mega-projects,” where delays in staffing can disrupt construction, commissioning, and production.

Lee’s message to the senators suggested that immigration friction now threatens not only individual workers but also the pace of bilateral investment. His remarks framed visa stability as a condition for keeping strategic projects on track.

Washington’s own recent language points in another direction. The March 30 USCIS update stressed strict screening and vetting of foreign nationals seeking entry or immigration benefits, placing national security and public safety at the center of policy.

That stance does not address the Seoul talks directly, but it forms the setting in which Lee’s requests landed. The harder enforcement posture also helps explain why the Georgia raid continued to shape discussions months later.

Diplomatic and government materials tied to the meeting and the alliance show how broad the agenda has become. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has published readouts on its press page, while the U.S. Department of State maintains its South Korea relations page.

The visa and defence issues are different in substance, but Seoul treated them as linked matters of alliance balance. One concerns who carries more military responsibility. The other concerns whether Korean workers tied to strategic investment can remain in the United States under stable conditions.

Lee’s formulation made the connection explicit by invoking the Georgia detentions and calling for faster action on visa system improvements. He did not cast the problem as abstract immigration policy, but as an obstacle to investment already promised by South Korean companies and institutions.

That approach also gave the senators a concrete measure of what Seoul wants from Congress. H.R. 4687 is not a general appeal for friendlier treatment, but a specific proposal with a defined visa category, annual quota, and eligibility standard.

The measure would reserve 15,000 visas each year for South Korean nationals with specialized education or expertise. By design, it would offer a route tailored to the kind of engineers and professionals Korean companies need to deploy to U.S. projects.

Seoul’s defence offer, meanwhile, rests on a visible timeline and a spending commitment. Regaining wartime operational control by 2030 and raising defense spending to 3.5% of GDP let Lee present South Korea as an ally prepared to do more.

That argument appears aimed at countering any perception that Seoul wants immigration flexibility without broader reciprocity. Instead, Lee presented visa reform and a stronger defence role as parallel parts of a more mature alliance.

Whether Congress advances the Partner with Korea Act remains an open political question, but the bill now sits at the center of Seoul’s immigration diplomacy with Washington. Its passage would alter how Korean professionals enter the U.S. labor market and how Korean firms staff projects on American soil.

For now, the message from Seoul is that the alliance can no longer separate security from mobility. Lee told the senators that investment in the United States depends on making sure “the residence conditions of Korean workers in the United States can be guaranteed more stably.”