Blue House tells migrant groups that Lee’s remarks weren’t hate speech

A senior Blue House official reportedly expressed sympathy for migrants hurt by President Lee Jae Myung’s recent comments in which he called for rethinking government programs that give preferential treatment to multicultural families.

 Jeon Seong-hwan, the senior presidential secretary for public engagement and social cohesion, reportedly said he “understood” how hurt those affected must feel in a meeting with migrant rights and labor organizations on Tuesday.

 The Blue House invited representatives of organizations including the Alliance for Migrant Workers’ Equal Rights and the Women Migrants Human Rights Center of Korea to the meeting, which was chaired by Jeon.

 The meeting appears to have been organized to contain the fallout from a series of controversial remarks by Lee, including his claims that foreign workers contribute little to the national economy and that preferential treatment for multicultural families by local governments, including the Seoul metropolitan government, has become a problem.

 In a press release issued immediately afterward, the Blue House said that meeting participants had offered policy recommendations based on their firsthand experiences with a range of issues, including gaps in welfare coverage for multicultural families, unpaid wages, seasonal agricultural work and the rights of migrant women.

 “They also expressed concern about growing hostility toward migrants and other minorities in Korean society and called for a clear-eyed awareness of the problem and for measures to address it,” the Blue House said in a press release.

 According to participants, Jeon sought to personally console migrants who may have been hurt by Lee’s remarks.

 One participant said that Jeon had apologized to those who were distressed and told them he understood how they felt.

But the same participant criticized Jeon for failing to share concrete plans for undoing the associated damage.

 “When we asked [Jeon] what he intended to do about the greater social costs brought about by the president’s remarks, which essentially empowered the forces of hate and deepened divisions that erode democracy and social cohesion, he just said, ‘I understand,’” they said.

Jeon further explained that Lee’s remarks had not been hate speech and suggested that civil society was misunderstanding them.

“[Jeon] said that the situation had occurred because of ‘differences in perception’ and that he could not accept [Lee’s remarks] being framed as hate speech,” one participant reported.

Another quoted Jeon as having “said that civil society was misunderstanding certain aspects and that he hoped they would look at the larger context.”

“We voiced concern about the serious ramifications that [migrants] face when the context is removed and only the language is left,” they added.

The groups participating in the meeting reportedly proposed steps that included restoring the multicultural family budget slashed during the Yoon Suk-yeol administration and having the Blue House hold related discussions. According to sources, Jeon replied that this would be “taken under consideration.”