Immigration raid exposes tensions from Seoul to Washington to rural Georgia
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More than 300 South Koreans were among 475 people arrested by US immigration officials.
PHOTO: EPA
Jim Lynn, Lydia DePillis, Rick Rojas, Farah Stockman, Sean Keenan
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ELLABELL, Georgia – A stretch of rural south-east Georgia, just outside Savannah, has been transforming rapidly in recent years, as a plan to create a massive manufacturing hub capable of producing nearly half a million vehicles a year has come to fruition.
The complex has embodied the ambitions of South Korean automakers wanting to compete in the US market.
But that vision has become clouded by uncertainty after federal immigration authorities raided the plant on Sept 4, halting construction. Nearly 500 workers – many of them South Korean citizens – were arrested.
South Korea, an enthusiastic trading partner, expressed frustration with the US.
Within the Trump administration, the arrests have revealed competing interests, as a push by the US President to expand US manufacturing has collided with his aggressive crackdown on immigration.
And in Ellabell and the surrounding area, the raids have revealed conflicting emotions about how quickly the region is changing and over who is filling the jobs that are being created.
Law enforcement officials said the raid on Sept 4 followed a months-long investigation into suspicions of unlawful employment practices at the HL-GA Battery plant, a joint venture of LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor Group.
Ms Margaret E. Heap, the US attorney for southern Georgia, said the operation had been intended to “prevent employers from gaining an unfair advantage by hiring unauthorised workers”.
On Sept 7, government officials with South Korea said they had reached an agreement with the US to free the South Korean workers and fly them back to that country.
But beyond that, many details of the raid and what the investigation found remained unclear. The investigation has not yet yielded criminal charges.
In Georgia, local politicians and labour organisers have raised concerns about the possibility that people lacking permanent legal status were being hired to work at the site, where construction began in 2023, and whether labour conditions met legal standards. Three workers have died at the complex over the past three years.
LG Energy Solution acknowledged that its employees and those from partnering companies had been detained. Hyundai said that none of its employees were being held, but that a review had been initiated to ensure that outside contractors and partnering companies “maintain the same high standards of legal compliance that we demand of ourselves”. NYTIMES
