In Sunday’s commentary “Climate Change: Ignore, Adapt, Mitigate?” we briefly discussed the September 4 ICE raid on the Hyundai/LG Energy Solutions EV battery plant under construction near Savannah, Georgia. Now we have more details and, of course, perspectives will continue to emerge. But a damage assessment is now possible. We offer some viewpoints below for readers to peruse before we turn to discussion. Hat tip to Korea Economic Daily for extensive reporting not normally found in the US general financial media.
(Photographer: Corey Bullard/US Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
As detailed in the Savannah Morning News, the warrant to search the plant named four individuals as the targets: Andreina Fuentes-Tovar, Kevin Zavaleta-Ramirez, David Zavaleta-Ramirez, and Julio Gonzalez Alvarado. It appears that ICE went looking for people of Hispanic ethnicity and ended up detaining around 300 Koreans. We have not yet seen any confirmation that ICE took along a Korean translator.
In addition to South Koreans, the raid swept up about 175 others. The New York Times has provided more information about the others and noted that only one South Korean remained in the US after the rest left voluntarily on Friday:
Along with the South Koreans, ICE agents picked up workers from Japan, China and Indonesia at the Georgia plant. The Mexican Consulate in Atlanta said 23 of its citizens had been detained, and the Colombian Consulate said it was aware of 19 Colombians.
(“Georgia ICE Raid Netted Workers With Short-Term Business Visas” | New York Times)
How did the raid come to happen? A Republican candidate for Georgia’s 12th congressional district, Tori Branum, has claimed credit for reporting the plant to ICE for employing undocumented workers. Branum told Rolling Stone:
“This is what I voted for — to get rid of a lot of illegals. And what I voted for is happening.
“How do I feel about it? Good. I have no feelings about the law. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong.”
(“Republican Candidate Takes Credit for Immigration Raid at Hyundai Plant” | RollingStone)
Rolling Stone also reports local rumors of poor working conditions at the plant.
The Wall Street Journal reports a local union’s reaction to American workers’ time-limited service on the construction project:
Barry Zeigler, the business manager of Local Union 188, which represents plumbers, pipe-fitters, welders and air-conditioning technicians, said he was furious after around 65 union members were let go from the battery plant several months ago. They had been hired to install mechanical piping by two separate subcontractors.
“We went out there and did a great job, no fatalities, no injuries, and then we just got replaced by the undocumented workers,” said Zeigler, who has been in the union for 27 years. “It was a kick in the knee.”
(“Hyundai Raid Rattles a Hot Spot of Growth in Georgia” | WSJ)
Specialized expertise is, however, necessary to get a plant up and running. An Atlanta immigration attorney representing several workers at the Hyundai factor noted that many of the Koreans who were working on the plant “are engineers and equipment installers brought in for the highly specialized work of getting an electric battery plant online,” who were to be onsite only on a short-term basis under the terms of the B-1 business visitor visa program. To train Americans to take their place to complete the setup process would be a matter of years, not months. The model of sending specially trained workers to the US to set up facilities that will then employ Americans is not new or unique to South Korean projects.
The issues surrounding the September 4 raid transcend the specific circumstances that led to it. Bloomberg highlights the perspective of Korean companies attempting to set up manufacturing in the US:
“The case demonstrates how tough it has become for Korean companies to make money from the investments in the US,” said Kang DaeKwun, chief investment officer at Life Asset Management Inc. “Return on investment was already getting low due to inflation and now companies face hiring challenges as well.
The Georgia plant was a tangible symbol of Seoul’s commitment to boosting US manufacturing. Korean businesses will face more challenges in constructing new plants or operating in the US if American authorities continue to enforce stringent immigration laws without fixing persistent visa problems, said Chang Sang-sik, head of the Korea International Trade Association’s International Trade and Commerce Research Center.
(“US Raid on Hyundai Plant Leaves Korean Companies Reeling” | Bloomberg)
In an editorial, the generally pro-American, conservative South Korean publication Donga Ilbo posed the question that is the crux of the matter, quoted in Politico Nightly:
If companies that are accelerating factory construction under pressure to invest are treated like criminal organizations, who would be willing to invest?
(“The wide blast radius from Trump’s Georgia raid” | Politico Nightly)
Politico’s “blast radius” metaphor is apt. The Korea Economic Daily details current fallout and what’s at stake,
Sources said at least 22 other factory sites involving Korean business groups, in autos, shipbuilding, steel and electrical equipment, have been nearly halted….
Industry officials in Seoul warn that unless visa arrangements for skilled Korean employees are settled through bilateral talks, investment timetables worth more than 140 trillion won ($101 billion) across multiple US states will face serious delays and cost overruns.
(“Korea’s major US investment projects halted as detained LG Energy workers set for release” | Korea Economic Daily)
Reuters reports that South Korean workers are leaving other LG Energy Solutions US investment projects, not just Hyundai in Georgia.
The ICE raid is expected to delay the opening of the Hyundai/LGES EV battery plant for a minimum of two or three months, though Hyundai will source car batteries elsewhere in the meantime. A delay that is shorter rather than longer may depend on steps the Trump administration takes to address the visa problem and ensure that South Korean workers laboring to create American jobs will not be subjected to ICE raids and detention again.
In a thread on X, journalist Raphael Rashid, a freelance journalist based in Seoul, set out to “highlight the broader structural/systematic issues that have frustrated Korean companies for years.” Think visas. Read on X at https://x.com/koryodynasty/status/1964339298087673947 or on ThreadReader at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1964339298087673947.html .
Bloomberg specifies the opposing forces at work in Trump administration policy:
The incident pits a core tenet of the Trump administration’s policy of aggressive immigration enforcement against its other major priority of attracting foreign investment and manufacturing back to American shores.
(“US Plant Raid Jolts South Korea and Stirs Investor Anxiety” | Bloomberg)
President Trump himself appears to grasp the problem. Fox News reports that “on Truth Social, Trump urged foreign companies investing in the US to respect immigration laws while pledging to make it ‘quickly and legally possible’ for them to bring in skilled workers.” On Sunday, September 7, Trump told reporters,
“If you don’t have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along…. So, we’re going to look at that whole situation. We have a lot of industries that we don’t have anymore, and we’re going to have to train people.”
(“Trump backs ICE raid at Hyundai plant, but says US needs foreign experts to train Americans” | Fox News)
Before detainees were released to return home to South Korea, Trump offered to let them stay to train US workers to finish the plant, but such a plan would have posed a significantly longer delay, given the level of training required.
Kotok View
The Hyundai Affair offers a case study regarding some of the current foreign-sourced investment in America. As the list above shows, there are many factors and opinions. There are many predictions about the future and the impact of disruptive policies.
What we do appear to know now is that a candidate for Congress has undermined a huge investment in her wannabe congressional district while triggering a search for four people with Spanish-sounding names that became a 300 Korean person deportation, delaying work at the plant. And it seems the Koreans were trying to deal with a broken American visa and immigration system and working around it to get this multi-billion-dollar American investment project going.
In my opinion, President Trump’s policy of tariff and deal making and foreign direct investment in America is being undermined by incompetency in the Homeland Security Department and ICE. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investments are now in jeopardy or, at a minimum, delayed.
We can’t know what the true decision tree for the foreign investor looks like, because it is opaque to Americans. We know only what is made public or revealed because of investigative journalism. And even then, there is now so much intense media distrust that makes discerning truth difficult. We are not in the rooms where it happens. That is why we looked at the Korea-sourced reporting.
Will the Trump administration announce positive new measures for legal immigration and asylum and temporary worker status and administrative procedures for legal immigrants to work safely? Will the Hyundai enterprises enjoy an effective legal process that is efficient and profitable? We hope so. Will Homeland Security and ICE think about what they do and how to do it versus this chaotic approach? As is, the Homeland Security Department’s ineptitude and ICE incompetence are dealing a blow to any American benefits from the Trump 2.0 trade deal policies.
This is the challenge ahead, and the clock is ticking. Trump’s politics of disruption to shake up the economy and the government are a current fact of business and individual life in America. Lamenting the loss of past policies is a waste of energy and effort. What to demand for the future so we can build a labor force legally is now critical. The existing labor force is static or shrinking. Training is missing. Systems to legalize non-criminal immigrants quickly seem to be missing.
What are the building blocks of the new business model? They still appear to be missing from Trump 2.0, but Trump’s language last Sunday suggests that the administration is thinking about these factors that are gumming up the gears for foreign investors looking to set up manufacturing in the US. Foreign investors will need to see that policy before they write their checks. American investors and citizens will need to see that coherent policy, with a temporary work visa provision as the replacement for the disruption.
As of September 5, even the agency that adjudicates immigration applications, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), will have “special agents” empowered to arrest people in the process of applying to be legal immigrants. These agents will be authorized to carry guns and to use deadly force. Even the immigration applications process is being restructured, with the prospect of heightening both fear and risk of arrest. For details and a perspective, see “New USCIS ‘Special Agents’ Will Be Given the Power to Arrest, Use Deadly Force Against Immigrants.” I invite readers to consider whether they think that this change will increase foreign investment, decrease foreign investment, or produce no change. Remember, we’re not able to hear the private discussion of a global investor in a boardroom outside the US.
The US economy now reflects Trump 2.0 economics at work and not Biden or Trump 1.0. The Hyundai Affair is a high-profile inflection point for global investor agents to observe and the Trump administration and Congress to consider. The world is watching.
Sources and Further Reading
“LG battery plant ICE operation: Details emerge after raid of Hyundai megasite in Georgia” | Savannah Morning News, https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2025/09/10/ice-warrant-for-hyundai-megasitein-ellabell-georgia-sought-four-target-persons/86043831007
“Georgia ICE Raid Netted Workers With Short-Term Business Visas” | New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/business/economy/hyundai-raid-worker-visas.html
“Republican Candidate Takes Credit for Immigration Raid at Hyundai Plant” | Rolling Stone, https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-branum-republican-hyundai-georgia-immigration-raid-1235422245/
“Hyundai Raid Rattles a Hot Spot of Growth in Georgia” | WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/us-news/hyundai-raid-rattles-a-hot-spot-of-growth-in-georgia-d1fcd585
“Attorney says detained Korean Hyundai workers had special skills for short-term jobs” | AP, https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyundai-24d990562f5ac20e7d3e983a77a4f7ff
“Attorney says detained Korean Hyundai workers had special skills for short-term jobs” | AP, https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-us-georgia-raid-hyundai-24d990562f5ac20e7d3e983a77a4f7ff
“US Raid on Hyundai Plant Leaves Korean Companies Reeling” | Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-08/south-korean-companies-reel-from-fallout-of-us-migrant-raid
“The wide blast radius from Trump’s Georgia raid” | Politico Nightly, https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2025/09/09/the-wide-blast-radius-from-trumps-georgia-raid-00552227
“Korea’s major US investment projects halted as detained LG Energy workers set for release” | Korea Economic Daily, https://www.kedglobal.com/business-politics/newsView/ked202509080002
“Exclusive: South Koreans head home from more LGES US battery sites after raid, sources say” | Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/south-koreans-head-home-more-lges-us-battery-sites-after-raid-sources-say-2025-09-10/
“Hyundai battery plant faces at least 2-3 month startup delay following US raid, CEO says” | Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/hyundai-battery-plant-faces-least-2-3-month-startup-delay-following-us-raid-ceo-2025-09-11/
Raphael Rashid’s thread on X “highlight[ing] the broader structural/systematic issues that have frustrated Korean companies for years,” https://x.com/koryodynasty/status/1964339298087673947 or ThreadReader at https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1964339298087673947.html
“US Plant Raid Jolts South Korea and Stirs Investor Anxiety” | Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-07/us-migrant-raid-jolts-south-korea-stirs-investor-anxiety
“Trump backs ICE raid at Hyundai plant, but says US needs foreign experts to train Americans” | Fox News, https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-backs-ice-raid-hyundai-plant-says-us-needs-foreign-experts-train-americans”
“New USCIS ‘Special Agents’ Will Be Given the Power to Arrest, Use Deadly Force Against Immigrants by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick and Shev Dalal-Dheini for Immigration Impact” | ILW, https://discuss.ilw.com/articles/articles/585213-article-new-uscis-‘special-agents’-will-be-given-the-power-to-arrest-use-deadly-force-against-immigrants-by-aaron-reichlin-melnick-and-shev-dalal-dheini-for-immigration-impact
