South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, has ordered “all-out efforts” to respond to the arrest of hundreds of its citizens by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) during a raid at a factory being built in Georgia to manufacture car batteries.
Cho Hyun, foreign minister, said the government had set up a taskforce following the arrest of 300 South Korean nationals.
He would travel to Washington if necessary and felt a “heavy responsibility” over the arrests, he added.
The raid, in which US immigration officials said Ice arrested a total of about 475 workers, also sent alarm bells ringing for South Korea’s LG Energy Solution (LGES), which suspended its employees’ business travel to the US after 47 of its employees were detained. The factory is for manufacture of batteries to power Hyundai, Kia and Genesis electric vehicles.
The company asked those currently on business there to return to Korea immediately and said its executive would travel to the US on Sunday in response to the arrest of its staff.
The raid is the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US in New York and Washington DC.
Although US immigration officials on Friday said there had been 475 arrests, the Korea Economic Daily earlier reported that about 560 workers at the Hyundai facility and LGES, had been detained, citing unidentified industry sources. Hyundai Motor is a South Korean car company but has many international operations.
The raid on Thursday dealt a setback to the company’s substantial project in Georgia and was a dramatic iteration of the Trump administration’s harsh crackdown on immigrants in the US.
The facility is part of what would be the biggest industrial investment in the state’s history and had been hailed as a huge boost for the economy by Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp.
The raid showed the disruptive impact that Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda is having on businesses, even as the White House tries to spur more inflows from foreign investors.
An agent at the DHS said multiple federal agencies, including Ice, the FBI and the DEA, “conducted a judicially authorised enforcement operation, as we are actively conducting an investigation into unlawful employment practices”.
“Arrests are being made,” Steven Schrank, special agent in charge of homeland security investigations for Georgia, said in a news briefing.
A South Korean government official said those arrested were being held at an Ice detention facility.
The factory is a joint venture between the South Korean battery maker LGES and Hyundai Motor and was due to start operations at the end of this year, according to LGES.
The arrests could exacerbate tensions between Washington and Seoul, a key ally and investor in the US. The countries have been at odds over the details of a trade deal that includes $350bn of investments. At a summit last month, South Korea pledged $150bn in US investments, including $26bn from Hyundai Motor.
A spokesperson at the Hyundai-GA battery company in Georgia said in a statement that it was cooperating fully and that it had paused construction work.
DHS officials said the workers who were arrested were barred from working in the US after crossing the border illegally or overstaying visas, following an investigation lasting several months.
A Hyundai Motor spokesperson said none of the people detained was employed directly by the automaker, which complies “with all laws and regulations wherever we operate”.
Hyundai Motor also said its production of electric vehicles at the sprawling site was not affected.
The workers were being held at Ice’s facility in Folkston, Georgia, Schrank said.
In 2023, Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution (LGES) announced the $4.3bn venture to produce EV battery cells, with each company holding a 50% stake.
The battery factory is part of Hyundai’s $12.6bn investments in Georgia, including the automaker’s just-opened car factory, in what would be “the largest economic development project in the state’s history” and is part of a bigger investment in US industry by the South Korean company, announced in March as Trump was ramping up tariffs.
Social media video footage showed a man wearing a vest with the letters HSI, an acronym forhomeland security investigations, telling workers in yellow safety vests: “We have a search warrant for the whole site. We need construction to cease immediately. We need all work to end on the site right now.”
Trump has said he wants to deport “the worst of the worst” criminals, but Ice figures have shown a rise in non-criminals being picked up. Rights advocates have denounced such raids.
While HSI led the raid, federal officers were assisted by the Georgia department of public safety and state troopers, according to local media.
Meanwhile in upstate New York, another Ice raid took place at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners facilities near Syracuse, where snack bars are made at a family-owned concern, drawing anger from the state governor.
Officers forced entry to the industrial facility and detained dozens of workers.
“I am outraged by this morning’s Ice raids in Cato and Fulton, where more than 40 adults were seized, including parents of at least a dozen children at risk of returning from school to an empty house,” Kathy Hochul, New York’s Democratic governor, said in a statement released by her office.
“I’ve made it clear, New York will work with the federal government to secure our borders and deport violent criminals, but we will never stand for masked Ice agents separating families and abandoning children,” she added.
The immigrant advocacy group Rural & Migrant Ministry said on Facebook that it estimated that more than 70 workers had been arrested.
Reuters contributed reporting
