Hundreds of federal agents rose to a spacious place where Hyundai produces electric vehicles in Georgia and arrested 475 people, most of them South Korean citizens.
This is the latest in a long series of raids in the workplace, which were carried out as part of the mass deportation of the Trump government. However, the one on Thursday is particularly different because the state officials of production states have long called Georgia's largest economic development project.
The detention of South Korean citizens also distinguishes it, since they are rarely involved in immigration enforcement compared to other nationalities.
Here are some things that are affected by the attack and the people:
The workers have arrested
The South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said on Saturday that more than 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people.
Some of them worked for the battery system operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture from Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, which is open next year, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the building location, according to Steven Schrank, the leading Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations.
He said that some of the imprisoned workers had illegally exceeded the US border, while others had legally entered the country, but had expired visas or had had a waiver of visa who forbidden them.
An immigration lawyer who represents two of the imprisoned workers said that his customers from South Korea had arrived from South Korea as part of a Visa reference program with whom they can travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without getting a visa.
Lawyer Charles Kuck said that one of his customers had been in the United States for a few weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days and added that they were planning to return home soon.
In a statement on Friday, the Hyundai Motor Company announced that none of his employees had been arrested so far that they checked its practices to ensure that suppliers and subcontractors follow the US working laws. LG announced The Associated Press that it could not immediately confirm how many of her employees or Hyundai workers had been arrested.
The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” about the operation that aimed at its citizens and sends diplomats to the location.
“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be wrongly violated in the process of pursuit of the US criminal proceedings,” said Lee Jawoong, spokesman for the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a television declaration from Seoul.
Most detained people were brought to an immigration center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida State line. None of them were still charged with crimes, said Schrank, but the examination has not yet been completed.
RAID is the result of a month -long examination
The raid was the result of a month -long examination of the allegations of the illegal attitude on site, said Schrank.
In a search order and associated affidavit, agents searched everything from employment documents for current and former employees and time cards to video and photos of workers.
Court files submitted this week showed that the prosecutors did not know who described “hundreds of illegal foreigners”. The identity of the “actual company or the contractor who hires the illegal foreigners is currently unknown,” wrote the US law firm in a registration of Thursday court.
The extensive production facility
The RAID aimed at a production facility that was generally considered one of the largest and highest Georgia in Georgia.
The Hyundai Motor Group started the manufacture of EVS in the work of 7.6 billion US dollars a year ago. Today the location employs around 1,200 people in a largely rural area about 40 kilometers west of Savannah.
The agents have closed themselves especially for an adjacent system that is still under construction, in which Hyundai has developed a partnership with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that produce electric vehicles.
Hyundai's location is located in Bryan County, where its population rose by more than a quarter in the early 2020s and was almost 47,000 inhabitants in 2023. The last year data are available.
The Asian population of the district rose from 1.5% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2023, and the growth was mainly in people of Indian descent.
RAID was the “largest operational operation of the individual locations”
From farms and construction sites to restaurants and car repair workshops, a large number of raids were carried out in this administration. However, most were smaller, including a robbery on the same day as Georgia One, at which federal officials took dozens of workers from a snack bar manufacturer in Cato, New York.
Other top-class raids were a legal marijuana farm northwest of Los Angeles in July. More than 360 people were arrested in one of the largest raids since Trump took office in January. Another took place in an Omaha. Nebraska, meat production system and dozens of workers who have been taken away.
Schrank described the in Georgia as the “largest operational operation of the individual locations” in the two decades of ten -ceremony history of the agency.
The majority of imprisoned people are Koreans. During the 12-month period, which ended on September 30, 2024, only 46 Koreans were deported to all nationalities, according to immigration and customs authorities.
Community members and supporters have mixed reactions
Kemp and other Republican officials from Georgia, who had been courted Hyundai and celebrated the opening of EV facilities, stated on Friday that all employers in the state would follow the law.
The non-profit organization for legal representation Asian Americans to drive the judiciary atlanta described the attack in a joint explanation as “unacceptable”.
“Our communities know that employees who aim at Hyundai are everyday people who try to feed their families, to build stronger communities and to work on a better future,” the explanation said.
Sammie Rentz opened the Viet -Huong supermarket of less than 4.8 kilometers from the Hyundai location six months ago and said that he feared that the business may not be crushing back after it has fallen off a lot since the attack.
“I am concerned. Koreans are very proud people, and I bet they don't appreciate what has just happened. I'm worried that they are cutting and running or running or an exit strategy,” he said.
The Tanya Cox living in Ellabell, who lives less than a mile from the location of Hyundai, said that she has no bad feelings against Korean nationals or other employees of the migration background at the location. Only a few neighbors were busy there, and she had the feeling that more buildings had to go to the residents in the battery plant.
“I do not see how many jobs brought it to our community or near the communities,” said Cox.
