Hundreds arrested in ICE raid at Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Georgia
The 3,000-acre facility, operational for about a year, has been the focus of a multi-month criminal investigation into alleged unlawful employment practices, the Department of Homeland Security said.
US immigration authorities have detained nearly 500 people at Hyundai’s electric vehicle factory in Georgia, marking the largest workplace enforcement operation of President Donald Trump's second term.
Most of those arrested are Korean nationals. The 3,000-acre facility, operational for about a year, has been the focus of a multi-month criminal investigation into alleged unlawful employment practices, the Department of Homeland Security said.
“This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” Steve Schrank, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Atlanta, said. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence, conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence... in order to obtain a judicial search warrant.” He added that it is “the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of homeland security investigations.”
The operation has drawn concern from South Korea, which called on the US to respect the rights of its citizens. Seoul said it was dispatching diplomats to the site and urged that “the economic activities of Korean investment companies and the rights and interests of Korean citizens must not be unfairly infringed upon during US law enforcement operations.”
President Trump defended the raid in the Oval Office, saying, “They were illegal aliens and ICE was just doing its job.” He added that some workers “came through illegally” and described them as “not the best of people.”
Officials said 475 people were found to be in the country illegally or working unlawfully. They are being held at an ICE facility in Folkston, Georgia, pending decisions on their next placement.
Of those detained, around 300 are Korean nationals. Hyundai stated that none of the arrested individuals are directly employed by the company and said production at the site has not been affected.
However, LG Energy Solutions, a partner in the battery joint venture, has paused construction work.
Videos circulating on social media show agents lining up workers and showing a warrant to search the facility. The raid highlights a tension between Trump’s goals of boosting US manufacturing and cracking down on illegal immigration.
Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp had described the Hyundai site as the state’s largest economic development project, creating 1,200 jobs.
The US continues to see arrests across the country targeting people in the country illegally, a campaign that began after Trump returned to office. While Latin American nationals have been the most affected, other nationalities, including Koreans, have also been detained.
