ELLABELL, Ga. (AP) — Immigration authorities said Friday they detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided the sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia where Korean automaker Hyundai makes electric vehicles.
Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said during a news conference Friday that the raid resulted from a monthslong investigation into allegations of illegal hiring at the site and was the “largest single site enforcement operation” in the agency’s two-decade history.
The Thursday raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, where Hyundai Motor Group a year ago began manufacturing electric vehicles at a $7.6 billion plant. The site employs about 1,200 people in an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Savannah where bedroom communities bleed into farms. Gov. Brian Kemp and other officials have touted it as the state’s largest economic development project.
Agents focused their operation on an adjacent plant that’s still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power EVs.
Court records filed this week indicated that prosecutors do not know who hired what it called “hundreds of illegal aliens.” The identity of the “actual company or contractor hiring the illegal aliens is currently unknown,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in a Thursday court filing.
South Korean government expresses ‘concern’
The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” over the operation targeting its citizens.
Koreans are rarely caught up in immigration enforcement compared to other nationalities. Only 46 Koreans were deported during the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2024, out of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to ICE.
“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said in a televised statement from Seoul.
Lee said the ministry is dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team.
Immigration attorney Charles Kuck said two of his clients who were detained had arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that enables them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.
“They were both engaging in normal visa waiver activities, still lawfully here doing the activities that are lawful for a visa waiver to do,” Kuck said.
One of his clients, he said, has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days. He did not provide details about the kind of work they were doing but said they had been planning to go home soon.
Schrank told reporters in Savannah that while some of the detained workers illegally crossed the U.S. border, others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working. He said some of those detained worked for the battery manufacturer, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site.
Schrank said he didn’t know precisely how many of the 475 detained were Korean nationals, but that they made up a majority. No one has yet been charged with any crimes, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.
“This was not a immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks, and put them on buses,” Schrank said. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation where we have developed evidence and conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented that evidence to the court in order to obtain a judicial search warrant.”
He said most of the detainees were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line.
Trump administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations
President Donald Trump’s administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.
The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.
The Democratic Party of Georgia on Friday condemned the raid, with its chair, Charlie Bailey, calling the raids, “politically-motivated fear tactics designed to terrorize people who work hard for a living, power our economy and contribute to the communities across Georgia that they have made their homes.”
Kemp and other Georgia Republican officials, who had courted Hyundai and celebrated the EV plant’s opening, issued statements Friday saying all employers in the state were expected to follow the law.
The Hyundai site sits on 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) in a largely rural area of Bryan County, drawing in workers from several surrounding counties and communities including Savannah.
Hyundai began producing electric vehicles at the site last September. A few months later, Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chairman Euisun Chung during a White House appearance with Trump credited the president with the company’s decision to create more American jobs by building an EV factory in Georgia.
“Our decision to invest in Savannah, Georgia, creating more than 8,500 American jobs, was initiated during my meeting with President Trump in Seoul in 2019,” Chung said at the March event.
Battery plant slated to open next year
The battery plant operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is slated to open next year.
In a search warrant and related affidavits, agents said they wanted employment records for current and former workers; personnel files; payroll information; bank account information; timecards; video and photos of workers; and immigration documents. Social security cards, visas, passports and birth certificates also were targeted. The agents also sought records about the ownership and management of multiple construction companies and contractors named in the search warrant materials.
The documents included the names and photos of four people identified as “target persons” to be searched, without further information about them.
In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was “closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details.” It said it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.
Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted by the raid, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson. Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement Friday it was “working to understand the specific circumstances” of the raid and detentions.
“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company,” the company’s statement said. “We prioritize the safety and well-being of everyone working at the site and comply with all laws and regulations wherever we operate.”
HL-GA Battery Co. did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. In a statement Thursday, the company said it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities.”
Those arrested Thursday who fight deportation may be detained as their cases wind through immigration court. The number of people in ICE custody topped 60,000 in August, an all-time high.
Kim Tong-Hyung contributed to this report
