Public opinion is sharply divided regarding the Hyundai plant immigration raid, with significant support for ICE actions aimed at enforcing immigration laws and protecting American jobs, contrasted by strong criticism of the targeting of workers and calls for corporate accountability. Many commenters express frustration over the perceived inequity in holding employers responsible and the potential negative impacts on the economy, U.S.-South Korea relations, and workers' rights.

Hyundai

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Some of the people arrested included LG managers that were here on short business trips. This just screams harder to the international business community "don't come to the usa". Trump is screwing up international relations in a way I never thought possible.

Heliosvector

Thirty of which were there on a fucking *business* trip:

[U.S. Immigration Authorities Raid Hyundai-LG Battery Plant in Georgia](https://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=251200)

&gt;The raid is reportedly part of a crackdown on illegal foreign residents, with over 30 Korean officials on business trips also said to have been arrested.  
...  
A local official mentioned that ICE arrested over 30 Koreans, including team leaders, managers, and senior staff on business trips from LG Energy Solution headquarters.

brain_overclocked

Well when the plant collapses due to losing most of their labor force, that'll be great for the economy!

SantoriniBikini

Kind of ironic considering most of the rental cars I see these ICE agents driving around in are Hyundais and Kias...

boringcarenthusiast

I’m sure crippling a plant’s labor footprint and deporting hardworking people will help those lagging labor statistics as the economy regresses, Donnie

jediporcupine

Trump seems bound and determined to make doing business in the U.S. as difficult as possible.

Spitriol

Were you at Governor Kemp? Huge investment in our state and you guys are dicking it up. 

Droopy1592

Wait, Koreans are in MS13 now…things really are getting bad!

LowellForCongress

All 475 people taken into custody were illegally present in the US. Some crossed into the US illegally, some had visa waivers and were prohibited from working, and some had overstayed their visas, according to a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge. (Probably fucking lying)

South Korea’s foreign ministry said that “many of our nationals” had been detained and expressed concern about the impact of the raid.

“The economic activities of our companies investing in the United States and the interests of our citizens must not be unduly violated during the course of US law enforcement,” a ministry spokesperson, Lee Jae-woong, said in a statement on Friday.

Cy_098

I'm sure Kemp is so divided about this. Does he lick trump's ass or own that this was one of his projects to help Georgia economy since the film industry is exiting . Oh well, he'll probably be silent since he's not running after this term and gave up on running for senate because he thinks he has a chance for the presidency . He'll probably mail out $100 checks to Georgians as rewards from ice or something equally dumb.

Designer-Contract852

I used to work in the U.S. automotive industry and here’s something most people don’t realize.

When companies like Hyundai, Toyota, BMW, or Mercedes open plants in the U.S., they bring in specialists from headquarters in Korea, Japan, or Germany.

These specialists are not here to take jobs away. They are here to implement the systems, train the local teams, and once the facility can run on its own, they usually move back home.

And these are not just any employees. These are their best people. The ones with the most expertise in their field.

So when someone here didn’t get hired and went to complain, that is exactly why they were not hired. They just were not ready yet.

Now Hyundai is probably furious. Their launch is delayed, and on top of that, all of their top experts are tied up and detained. In automotive, every single hour counts.

And here’s the bigger issue. Leaders talk about bringing jobs back to America. But when companies actually try, and the U.S. arrests the very people sent to make it possible, it makes executives think twice about investing here.

It’s a stupid move by the government… and it could cost us thousands of jobs.

Informal-Performer19

That'll teach car manufacturers to set up shop in a non shithole country the next time

MarkZuckerbergsPerm

One of my friend is a battery engineer that was sent to HL-Joint venture and he has not checked his messages since 48 hours ago. This is really freaking me out.

Ok-Mouse-255

Hyundai's CEO must have refused to bribe Trump substantially.  You know a raid of this size on an major international corporation wouldn't have been done with his direct approval.  Hyundai is one of the major chaebols that basically control the country.  It's not just an immigration raid, it's a threat to the behind the scenes leadership of South Korea, one of our allies.

So yeah, I'd say what the fuck but I'm all out of fucks to give.

AdminIsPassword

See when they say bring back manufacturing/factories to the US, they mean industrial-revolution but pre-labour rights era manufacturing, with a bit of the worst of the gilded age mixed in^(actually, a lot mixed in. A LOT.) China is the goal here.

Retaining-Wall

ASnowfallOfCherry

Any bosses getting arrested for employing that many illegal workers? I won't hold my breath.

thistimelineisweird

When does the Trump administration make a deal with Kim Jong to rendition all of these "criminals" to North Korean prison camps?

Coherent_Tangent

Cool, cool, cool. Let's alienate one of our biggest allies in Asia. You know the one that's next door to North Korea and China where we keep a lot of our military.

kloiberin_time

Bro wanted manufacturing back in the states and Koreans said ok. Then bro arrest them all when Korean are bringing them back to the states. What?

domomymomo

“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company.” WTF does that mean? Nobody in corporate is going to be punished only the peons to be terrorized and criminalized?

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So, are they being spirited away on airplanes to prisons in other countries?

Several_Situation887

notnri

Rocket-man rubbing his hands from behind a tree in his little yellow suit.

Sarrdonicus

They’re flooding the news with more mentions of “Korean” to drown out the North Korea story. 

johhnny5

What is baffling about this is that the Trump administration recently made a deal with South Korea to reduce import tariffs in exchange for South Korea investing $350 billion in U.S. projects.  
So it's OK for their money to come into the U.S. but not their people?

CrackConch242

I'm beginning to think... I don't know what to think anymore.  My logical brain is unable to make ANY sense of this. 🤔😧😳

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8S1xqSs/

Here's the lady that reported to ICE

Spaced-out-ET

Conspiracy: piss off s. Korea to justify pulling our military out of sk, giving China and nk by proxy even stronger positions in the region.

chuckangel

What jobs were they performing and what were they being paid? 

That’s the big question. Because there’s a reason corporations would hire that many of them. And it’s the reason moving manufacturing to America makes prices rise.

umassmza

So when is Hyundai being sued for all that illegal hiring?

sugarlessdeathbear

Wow 475 criminal immigrants in one place! /s

Beginning_Victory_48

Going after all those hard core ms13 Korean gang members I see…as Trump and DHS would never blatantly lie to us

NeverLookBothWays

thrust-johnson

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I’m sure the constituents in her district will be thrilled with that decision once Hyundai pulls out of Georgia and 8500 jobs disappear.

suedaisy

A woman in the marines? Sounds like woke dei to me. 

Pretend_Spray_11

wtf is this “tipping” nonsense?  EVERYONE knows that foreign auto companies bring some of their own people along because they have the requisite knowledge on how to build the vehicles from their home country.

JBRifles

Eventually the foreign car makers will realize the cost of dealing with ICE isn’t worth the savings of lower wages in non-unionized factories. Or just work harder to automate as much as possible. Either way jobs will be less than expected.

Actual-Outcome3955

Google her. She's a perennial candidate, with no chance of even making the primary runoff, with a history of being full of it (and of talking about her boobs).

ATLien_3000

What a piece of shit. Hyundai doesnt fucking need ICE it needed OSHA. 


AND ITS NOT EVEN HER FUCKING DISTRICT. She is running to represent the 12th district, Hyundai's meta plant is in the 1st. 

Double_Welder647

Thanks for destroying jobs and the economy to catch these evil, drug dealing killers.

Admirable-Lies

She’s a pedophile protector. Anything to distract from Epstein. Vile person. Also complicit in raising prices for all your food.

UnexpectedWings

Wild to hear her talk about human trafficking while [gestures broadly, flailing] Epstein.

Embarrassed_Lock234

So what’s the play here? RAID every foreign company, arrest their employees and make them only hire white people? Every foreign company will just pull out of the country completely. Not only is this hateful it’s stupid.

MadVillainG

trump hates Brian Kemp for not "finding 12,000" votes in 2020 &amp; this plant was/is a major economic "feather in his cap" for Kemp. This is undoubtedly a factor here. South Korea's reactions of "Uh bro, WTF? we've pledged $25 billion in spending to the USA over the next couple years... &amp; most of these people were welcomed through Customs in LAX or ATL...c'mon bro..." speaks to the reality of this situation.

DukeOfWestborough

She looks like she's a veteran of an all-you-can-eat buffet. That plus her inappropriate cleavage is enough to create the attack ads against her , with the punchline being her actions will simply cause Hyundai to shutter the factory and kill of American jobs once it was set to open.
Great job to this maga moron!

Master_Land_8843

I thought Marine was supposed to be tough and smart... I guess the video explains why the snitch is an EX Marine.

Vx0w

Has anyone considered she may be lying? Its not as if the plant wasn’t news nationwide. I’m willing to wager this has more to do with Trump/Kemp and the fact that after this raid Kemp IMMEDIATELY sent troops to cut grass in DC or whatever bullshit their up to there.

oort-clouds

I guess Honor is no longer a value she follows.

lenninct

Basically the plot of “The Amazing Racist”. Which was a parody but now it’s real life.

person_8688

She looks like she has an….. alternate website for other things…

twosock360

Thanks so much, Karen. Our allies are bringing billions in technology and jobs to Georgia. It is so hard to pull together something like this project. So instead of welcoming them, instead of helping, you take a big ol’ crap in the punch bowl - and now everybody pays attention to you for a minute. What a brain dead fool.

mountuhuru

Wow, she is proud of this?  Everyone needs to remember this person who cannot analyze a situation and do the best thing, but instead wants to make headlines.

ladeedah1988

A close friend has worked for Kia for years; it's essentially right next door to the Hyundai plant, and is equally large and *Korean.*

Every single syllable out of this feckless bitch's mouth is 100% grass-fed bullshit.

punksmostlydead

so what's being done to hyundai for hiring all of them?  i would suspect something like fines of 100k-1m per individual that was found to be working there illegally?  right???

z01z

Japanese automakers would declare their manufacturing sites in the US as "International Trade Zones".  In some cases international laws superseded local laws.  Is Hyundai not doing that?

CarltonCanick

merriweatherfeather

Georgia sure wants the investments in the electric car business yet punishes the ev drivers with high fees, much higher than the gasoline taxes that they inspected lieu of.

heybdiddy

&gt; The masked immigration agents like those in Bryan County on Thursday — a sight that was once shocking but has become commonplace — were primarily from ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations division and DHS’ investigative arm, HSI, according to videos reviewed by Rolling Stone. Those agencies and more were deemed guilty by a federal judge of widespread constitutional violations for racially profiling migrants during investigations and operations in Los Angeles and elsewhere. 

Reading down I thought why would local ICE agents going by the books after a months long investigation and attaining a warrant risk delegitimizing the whole operation by pulling the face mask nonsense in LA. Then I got to that paragraph. I get the scale of the operation may have necessitated bringing in more agents, but it legit looks like the ICE agents pulling the reckless untrustworthy mask bullshit are the same group of merc-like thugs who may as well be unqualified ICE impersonators flying around the country to pad local ICE agents. Local agents with warrants dont warrant masks. The ones clearly out of state masking to clearly avoid accountability are delegitimizing all of you. Im sure none will, but in the off chance one does. If you are affiliated with ICE, you should advocate a mask ban. Its absurd, and to your own detriment. Public opinion of ICE couldnt get lower since the masks, regardless of political affiliation, irregardless of politicization. I dont care if your vest says ICE. Im disregarding anything a masked man says, asks, or orders unless we are in a hospital. The same assholes who refused to mask during the pandemic to protect others are now masking to harm others. Again, absurd. Ban face masking for agents in the field.

snowflake37wao

ursiwitch

Did they have work visas?  Honest question.

SleepylaReef

Who would be against the crackdown?  $BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars was used from Biden’s IRA bill to build these plants for American workers.

Quantum-Long

Because the worst of the worst go to work every day making batteries for EVs.🙄

kck93

Tariffs and now raids on technical folks building factories.

What a shitty time to make things in America.

Direct_Marsupial5082

My guess is they detained a lot of people who have valid paperwork and visas too, because they've been operating under an arrest first-questions later, policy.

Everyone assuming that ICE only got people here illegally, has not been paying attention to their abysmal false positive rates and efforts to detain people following the law and process fully above board too.

ExtraordinaryKaylee

“Hyundai said in a statement that none of those detained were Hyundai employees, as far as the company was aware. “ - from the article

ThatTryHardAsian

Manufacturing plants are getting raided now... 

&gt;They were among nearly 500 workers apprehended at a construction site for a South Korean battery maker, officials said. The episode prompted diplomatic concern in Seoul.

Are we great yet?

Jeffbx

If they were just people visiting on ordinary business trips to support the new factory and nothing more nefarious or improper than that, then the message to the world is clear. Don’t come to America. America is closed to business.

dwoodruf

Here bud, maybe you should read into the raid before you make so many assumptions based off your emotions. 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/us/georgia-hyundai-plant-raid-timeline

Not only was this raid being prepared for months, every person taken in to custody was here illegally, which was determined on-site. 

You obviously don’t know a damn thing about South Korean corruption - you’re probably not even aware the Hyundai family was among the people ousted by the South Korean citizens for corruption several years ago.

thisisintheway

I'm sure we will learn more in the coming days.  500 workers is going to get a lot of attention and it would not surprise me if the plant is essentially at a standstill right now.  It will not surprise me if a number of these workers are employed by Korean based, tier 1 suppliers to Hyundai.  It certainly seems there were visa violations.

bikeguy1959

Good god all the people simping for Hyundai here is unreal.

Yankee831

I want to know how 500 Korean workers end up at a battery plant in south Georgia. Do they come on tourist visas? Clearly this had to be some kind of coordinated effort.

KingMe87

Won't be surprised if Hyundai got caught in visa issues and skilled workers availability and decided to work around bureaucratic delays, and get workers for training or set up from Korea

Dilbertreloaded

No, but, for sure, with all your fucking tariffs and all the big beautiful new factories that will be built here, there will be lots and lots of jobs for American workers. Right? 

You can't even fill the ones that are here now with Americans. They don't want to work in factories. Get it?

Skidpalace

No sympathy from me. Being here illegally or working unlawfully carries those inherent risks.

Infinite-Chocolate46

Too tier, 2nd and even many 3rd tier contractor set up their office in the U.S. and hire local workers as the work last several years. Even a third tier contractor's business which does a lot of manual electrical works  are typically well above 10 million USD/year per site. So it is worth it to set up an office and hire some local workers.

LG ensol was setting up a battery factory. These battery manufacturing machines are mostly from Korea Japan or China and not from the U.S.

Most likely, those who visit the U.S. without work visa are typically equipment service guys who visits the site for a week or a month, install equipment, do testing and  trouble shootings.

Simply there isn't a visa for such a short term technical work. They are not even hired by American corporate to begin with. Obviously I am just guessing it based on what I've heard from 3rd tier contractor and my previous experiences.

Trump is a reason why the U.S. is behind of EV and why there isn't such a machinery manufacturer in the U.S. Trump doesn't like EV and probably this is bigger reason than anything else. He thinks CO2 and global warming is just hoax.

It's better to leave that factory empty and fire everyone and let Georgia Governor loose mid term election. After all that's what Trump wants and he should get it.

Ok-Mastodon-1884

Just to briefly summarize what *some* political pundits in Korea are saying::

That US has accepted Korea's MASGA Project proposal to lower the tarriff and that the Korea-US Summit was held in a friendly manner, does NOT mean the trade/security dialogue between Korea and the US are done. There are still ongoing dialogues at various levels of government.

There are two layers of things to analyze this situation.

(1) On one hand, there are clearly some wrongs done by Korean plants in Georgia including Hyundai Autho and LG Energy. They should not have exploited visa-free 90-day ESTA to *work* at these plants. So there are legal violation that the companies have been involved. It is telling that these raids was first initiated by reports/whistleblowing by the Georgia factory insiders.

(2) With regards to the US federal government and Trump's response to this, they are trying to exploit the situation by basically taking them as hostage to the ongoing dialogues against Korea.

Queendrakumar

This was targeted operation by MAGA to humiliate Korean companies and trying to steal Korean factories.

kochigachi

This news only makes the following even worse......

Only 22,000 jobs added in August and June's numbers were revised much lower to now become the first month we had LOSS of jobs. 

Farmers are having emergency meetings as we speak seeing bankruptcy looming.

LackingStory

&gt;“Those who exploit our workforce, undermine our economy, and violate our federal laws will be held accountable,”

When operations like this are conducted, they arrest the employees and the employers, right? I would imagine that both parties are arrested, but I never see this explicitly said in the reports. Or how does that work - do the employers get prosecuted after the raid and only arrested later in the process?

Conscious-Bar-1655

If you burn your house down you'll never have to worry about squatters. It's a very clever plan.

sayzitlikeitis

She might weep for the future of America's EV battery production.

BravewagCibWallace

Knowing ICE, they probably weren't even illegal. Just "not white" is good enough for them.

shinbreaker

Seeing that Hyundai is a South Korean company…

MinuteCollar5562

I’m still waiting for one right winger to start suggesting we go after the major companies that keep knowingly hiring undocumented workers and then illegal under pay them

naththegrath10

This looks really bad for Hyundai, and if it’s true, is a good job by ICE. So of course I’ll wait until we see official charges filed, and wait to hear from these people’s lawyers about their actual immigration status before I make an actual judgement.

OrionJohnson

She will more likely weep for the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars ripped out of the local economy where those south Koreans worked 

Geist_Lain

“Will Krystal weep for SK illegals?”

Only if they identify as Palestinian.

boner79

A significant immigration enforcement operation led to the detention of approximately 475 workers at a Hyundai-LG battery plant in Georgia, sparking concerns over workers' rights.

Hyundai Plant Immigration Raid

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