RAID of mass immigration at the major automotive plant almost 500 arrested

Ellabell, Georgia (AP) – Immigration authorities said Friday that arrested 475 people, most of them South Korean citizens, when hundreds of federal agents raided the extensive manufacturing site in Georgia, where Hyundai creates electric vehicles.

Steven Schrank, the main agent of Georgia National Security Research, said during a press conference on Friday that the raid resulted in a month investigation into accusations of illegal hiring on the site and was the “most large individual sites application operation” in the history of two decades of the agency.

Thursday’s raid was aimed at one of the largest and high -profile manufacturing sites in Georgia, where Hyundai Motor Group a year ago began manufacturing electric vehicles with a plant of $ 7.6 billion. The site uses about 1,200 people in an area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Savannah, where bedroom communities bleed in farms. Governor Brian Kemp and other officials have promoted him as the largest economic development project.

The agents focused their operation on an adjacent plant that is still under construction in which Hyundai has been associated with the LG energy solution to produce batteries that feed the EVs.

The judicial records presented this week indicated that prosecutors do not know who hired what he called “hundreds of illegal foreigners.” Currently, the identity of the “Royal Company or Contractor that hires illegal foreigners is unknown,” wrote the United States prosecutor’s office in a presentation of the Court on Thursday.

The South Korean government expresses ‘concern’

The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” for the operation addressed to its citizens.

Koreans are rarely trapped in the immigration application compared to other nationalities. Only 46 Koreans were deported during the 12 -month period that ended on September 30, 2024, of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to Ice.

“The commercial activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals should not be unfairly infringed in the US police process,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Korea, Lee Jaewoong, in a televised statement of Seoul.

Lee said the ministry is sending diplomats of its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an response team on the site.

Immigration lawyer Charles Kuck said that two of his clients who were arrested had arrived from South Korea under a visa exemption program that allows them to travel through tourism or businesses for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

“Both participated in normal visa exemption activities, still legally, here doing the activities that are legal for a visa exemption,” Kuck said.

One of his clients, he said, has been in the United States for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for approximately 45 days. He did not provide details about the type of work they were doing, but said they had planned to go home soon.

Schrank told journalists in Savannah that, although some of the detained workers illegally crossed the United States border, others had legally entered the country but had expired visas or entered an exemption from visa that forbade them to work. He said that some of the detainees worked for the battery manufacturer, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors on the construction site.

Schrank said he did not know precisely how many of the 475 detainees were Korean citizens, but that they invented a majority. No one has been accused of any crime, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.

“This was not an immigration operation where agents entered the facilities, rounded people and put them on buses,” Schrank said. “This has been a criminal investigation of several months in which we have developed evidence and conducted interviews, gathered documents and present that evidence to the court to obtain a judicial search warrant.”

He said that most of the detainees were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line.

Via News

The Trump administration has undertook wide ice operations

The administration of President Donald Trump has carried out radical ice operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have farms, construction sites, restaurants and car repair workshops.

The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary data from the Census Office, says that the United States workforce lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January to July. That includes people who are in the country illegally and legal residents.

The Georgia Democratic Party condemned the raid on Friday, with its president, Charlie Bailey, calling the raids, “scary tactics motivated politically designed to terrorize people who work hard to make a living, promote our economy and contribute to the Georgia communities that have made their homes.”

Kemp and other Republican officials from Georgia, who had courted Hyundai and celebrated the opening of the EV plant, issued statements on Friday by saying that all employers in the state were expected to follow the law.

The Hyundai site is located at 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares) in an area in a large rural part of Bryan’s county, attracting workers from several counties and surrounding communities, including Savannah.

Hyundai began producing electric vehicles on the site last September. A few months later, the executive president of Hyundai Motor Group, Euisun Chung, during an appearance at the White House, with Trump accredited the president with the company’s decision to create more American jobs through the construction of an EV factory in Georgia.

“Our decision to invest in Savannah, Georgia, creating more than 8,500 American jobs, began during my meeting with President Trump in Seoul in 2019,” Chung said in the March event.

Programmed battery plant to open next year

The battery plant operated by HL-GAG Battery Co., a joint company of Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is scheduled to open next year.

In an related statement and affidavits, agents said they wanted employment records for current and previous workers; personnel archives; payroll information; bank account information; Time pictures; video and photos of workers; and immigration documents. Social Security cards, visas, passports and birth certificates were also attacked. The agents also sought records on the property and management of multiple construction companies and contractors appointed in the materials of the search warrant.

The documents included the names and photos of four people identified as “objective people” to look for, without more information about them.

In a statement to News, LG said he was “monitoring the situation closely and gathering all the relevant details.” He said he could not immediately confirm how many of his employees or workers in Hyundai had been arrested.

The operations at the Hyundai EV manufacturing plant were not interrupted by the raid, said plant spokeswoman Bianca Johnson. Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement on Friday that he was “working to understand the specific circumstances” of the raid and the arrests.

“As of today, we understand that none of the detainees is used directly by Hyundai Motor Company,” said the company’s statement. “We prioritize the safety and well -being of all those who work on the site and comply with all laws and regulations where we operate.”

HL-GAG Battery Co. did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Friday. In a statement on Thursday, the company said it is “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities.”

Those arrested on Thursday fighting deportation can be arrested since their cases will sound through the Immigration Court. The number of people in ice custody exceeded 60,000 in August, a historical maximum.

___

Ap Kim Tonghyung journalist reported from Seoul, South Korea. Jeff Martin in Marietta, Georgia; Jeff Amy in Atlanta; and Mike Schneider in Orlando, Florida, contributed.