Raid on Hyundai-LG plant in US points to Trump’s focus on immigration enforcement

SEOUL – LG Road, Kia Drive, Kona Drive, Palisade Drive and Genesis Drive.

These are the names of streets that encircle the 1,198ha site that houses Hyundai’s first fully electrified vehicle and battery manufacturing plant in the US in a rural part of the state of Georgia, named for vehicle models in the motoring giant’s stable.

It is a nod to the spread of top investor South Korea’s business reach in the south-eastern state, home to more than 100 South Korean companies.

But on Sept 4, the plant earned the ignominy of being the site of what US officials say is the largest immigration sweep in the history of the US Department of Homeland Security’s operations.

Amid a broader crackdown on illegal immigration,

475 people were rounded up

at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America (HMGMA) – including 300 South Koreans whom US President Donald Trump has described as “illegal aliens”.

“It’s important for Korean and other foreign investors to recognise that as important as manufacturing investments are to the Trump administration, immigration enforcement is a higher priority,” Mr Troy Stangarone, a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology, told The Straits Times.

Most of the arrested South Korean workers, who are employed by subcontractors, were said to have been in the US on the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation visa waiver programme, intended for short-term trips of up to 90 days for the purposes of business meetings and contract signing only.

Some of them had overstayed, while most were considered to be working illegally in violation of the terms of their visas, said US Customs officials.

To be legally employed at a work site in the US, a foreigner needs a work visa, such as the H-1B visa, which is meant for foreigners in specialised occupations.

Those arrested worked for the battery plant, which is due to be operational by the end of 2025, or its construction, said lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations Steven Schrank.

“Your investments are welcome, and we encourage you to legally bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build world-class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sept 8, following the raid.

This sting operation at the construction site of the joint Hyundai-LG battery manufacturing facility located within the HMGMA site underscores a longstanding issue that has not been resolved.

Unlike other countries with free trade agreements with the US that receive annual quotas of the H-1B visas, South Korea is not allocated such quotas, according to media reports.

This sweeping raid occurred barely a fortnight after South Korean President Lee Jae Myung visited Mr Trump at the White House on Aug 25, pledging that South Korean firms would invest US$150 billion (S$193 billion) in the US.

That was on top of an initial US$350 billion promised in an earlier round of tariff negotiations.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun flew to Washington on Sept 8 to

facilitate the release and return of the detained South Koreans

. He also plans to engage his US counterparts on a more sustainable solution to the visa issue.

In a Sept 5 statement, Hyundai said the company is “committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations” and expects “the same commitment from all our partners, suppliers, contractors and subcontractors”.

While Hyundai and other South Korean conglomerates are rushing to contain any fallout for their US operations, the response from other Asian countries and companies has been comparatively muted so far.

Japan, the largest source of foreign direct investment in the US since 2019, has not issued any special travel advisories to US-bound travellers.

While the South Korean government has so far exercised restraint in its response to the crisis – focusing on assisting affected nationals and affirming the South Korea-US alliance – the domestic sentiment has been one of outrage.

Local media called the arrests “ruthless” and “a thudding shock”. 

Dr Lee Seong-hyon, a senior fellow at the Washington-based George H.W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations, called it a “national dishonour”, where the lack of prior notification to an ally over such a massive sting operation was “a profound breach of diplomatic protocol”.

Dr Lee told ST that it was clear the operation was a “carefully calibrated action designed for maximum political impact”. 

But the ultimate hurt came from the public humiliation suffered by the shackled South Korean workers – perceived as unnecessary public shaming.

Dr Lee said this underscores the stark differences between the “transactional American world view and a relational Korean culture built on trust”.

In March, during the opening ceremony of the HMGMA, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who had flown to Seoul in 2019 and 2024 to lobby for investments, had praised the facility as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” creating “high-quality jobs of today and tomorrow”. 

On the day of the raid, the governor released a statement saying the state had cooperated with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the blitz and that “all companies operating within the state must follow the laws of Georgia and our nation”.

The HMGMA, a colossal project that could produce as many as 500,000 hybrid and electric vehicles a year and employ up to 12,500 workers by the early 2030s, was lauded as Georgia’s largest economic development project.

South Korea’s economic influence in Georgia is manifest in road names elsewhere in the state, such as SK Boulevard and a QCells Parkway – named for the conglomerate SK and Hanwha’s lithium-ion battery and photovoltaic cells facilities, respectively.

South Korea’s largest newspaper Chosun Daily has slammed the US for its “structural hypocrisy”, pointing to Mr Kemp’s earlier effusive words for the Hyundai plant and how he had, just a day before the raid, lauded South Korean company JS Link’s US$233 million investment in a rare earth magnet facility in the state.

Dr Lee said the crackdown sends a chilling message about the heightened risks of foreign direct investment in the US. “The raid served as an implicit warning that relying on customary ‘grey area’ practices is no longer safe. The new, non-negotiable conditions for doing business are strict adherence to US law and prioritising the hiring of American labour.”