Steven Scharnk, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said 475 people were detained, most of whom are South Korean nationals, as the immigration raid occurred at a manufacturing site.
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.
