A raid on a Hyundai-LG factory in Georgia led to the arrest of 475 workers, causing outrage in South Korea. Photo / Getty Images
The large-scale immigration raid on a Hyundai-LG battery factory in the American state of Georgia has sent shock waves across South Korea.
The country is a United States security ally that has this year pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US and is now baulking at what many in South Korea view as the Trump Administration’s bad-faith actions.
Opposition lawmakers, former government officials and newspapers across the ideological spectrum are expressing outrage at the raid in which more than 300 South Korean nationals were arrested, calling the Administration “unusual”, “impulsive” and “contradictory”.
“I’m really speechless and furious,” said Choi Jong Kun, a former vice-foreign minister. “We spend a lot of money in the US and we get slapped in the face.”
The arrest of 475 workers last week at the plant in Ellabell, Georgia, was the largest worksite enforcement operation to take place so far in US President Donald Trump’s second term.
South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun was scheduled to travel to Washington today amid fallout from the raid last Friday NZT.
The Foreign Ministry said Cho would work toward the “voluntary departure”, rather than deportation, of all South Korean citizens so that they can be repatriated on chartered flights as soon as possible.
The employees are expected to return to South Korea as early as this week.
There is broader alarm in the country about what the actions mean for South Korean companies that have invested in the US, drawn in large part by Washington’s efforts to boost economic co-operation between the two nations as a strategy to counter China’s growing economic dominance.
And there is frustration at “America First” sentiments that say South Korean companies are taking part in a “bait-and-switch”, promising jobs for Americans but illegally hiring their own nationals instead – an allegation made by Tori Branum, a Georgia Republican running for Congress in 2026.
South Korean media has focused on Branum, who describes herself as an “America First” candidate.
She claims to have tipped off immigration authorities about the battery plant and talked to an agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement about her concerns over the legal status and treatment of workers there.
“Her justification of ‘protecting American jobs’ rings hollow when her actions sabotage Georgia’s long-term prosperity,” wrote one South Korean business publication, CEO News, saying Branum was using the issue to gain a political advantage in her campaign.
Some analysts, using a shorthand for Trump’s base that rallies around his “Make America Great Again” slogan, or Maga, said they are concerned that his supporters may be fomenting negative attitudes towards South Korea.
“Looking at the behaviour of the Maga camp and its politicians, it’s clear that … the US has changed dramatically,” Kim Jong Dae, a former lawmaker, said in a radio interview.
“This is a deeply worrying trend within the Maga camp – not only leading to a crackdown on South Korean workers, but also in fact fostering antipathy toward South Korea.”
South Korean companies such as Hyundai and LG, which jointly operate the plant in Georgia, ramped up their investments in the US under President Joe Biden’s Administration, which offered incentives for semiconductor and electrical vehicle production.
Then, as part of a recently agreed trade deal with the Trump Administration, South Korea agreed to invest US$350 billion ($590b) in the US to help revitalise American manufacturing – which Trump has welcomed with open arms.
In March, Trump called Hyundai’s investments in the US – including the Georgia project – “beautiful”.
However, the images of South Korean workers shackled during the raid say otherwise, their compatriots say.
“We are there to help boost up American industries … and once they are set up, there will be good infrastructure for increasing American employment,” said Choi, the former vice-foreign minister. “But what we saw was those Koreans chained with handcuffs and treated as if they were terrorists or a bunch of thugs.”
The raid comes during a rocky period between Washington and Seoul, during which Trump eventually settled on a 15% blanket tariff for South Korea in response to its US$66b trade deficit with the US.
But tensions seemed to be easing last month, when South Korea’s left-leaning President, Lee Jae Myung, held a chummy summit with Trump in Washington, the two of them touting co-operation and the strength of the bilateral relationship.
The raid came as a rude awakening. South Korean politicians and media outlets did not mince their words, criticising the immigration raid as politically targeted against South Korea, perhaps for Trump to gain an edge among his supporters.
“Why should the world watch South Koreans who go overseas for work get dragged off in handcuffs and with shackles on their hands and feet?” conservative lawmaker Shin Dong-Wook said, amid broader claims that the country’s businesses were “gripped by fear” after the raid.
Chosun Ilbo, South Korea’s largest daily newspaper, raised concerns about what the raid would mean for future investments.
“Why target South Korean factories when Taiwan and others are also building plants in the US?” the conservative paper wrote in an editorial.
“[Seoul] should convey domestic concerns - such as, ‘Should we continue investing in the US?’ - to US authorities and demand strong guarantees to prevent recurrence.”
Hankyoreh, a left-leaning news outlet, criticised Washington for damaging ties between the two allies.
“The US’ double-dealing behaviour of demanding massive infusions of capital from Korea, only to use immigration raids to intimidate the companies making these investments, is extremely regrettable,” Hankyoreh wrote.
Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations in Georgia and Alabama, said in a news briefing last week that some of the workers had entered the country illegally, some were working in violation of their visas, and some had overstayed their visas. He said the arrests were part of an ongoing, months-long investigation.
South Korean politicians and corporate leaders are calling for clearer visa guidelines from Washington.
It is unclear what type of visa the detained workers used. For more than a year, South Korean businesses have faced challenges navigating the US visa process given the cap on specialised work visas, such as the H-1B, and they have used other short-term visas that left the workers in a “grey zone”, said James Kim, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.
That meant engineers helping establish plants like the Hyundai-LG factory would enter on a visa waiver called the Electronic System for Travel Authorisation or on a B-1 business visa.
Both allow visitors to carry out certain business activities, like attending conferences or business meetings, but they are not intended for paid employment in the US.
“When you are sending people for factories involving semiconductors or electric batteries, you need people on the floor who know what they’re doing. And because this is still relatively a new industry, it’s not that easy finding those people,” Kim said.
That practice became the norm – particularly for subcontractors, who don’t have the same resources as major conglomerates to navigate visa issues.
It wasn’t an issue under the Biden Administration, which did not have the same focus on immigration enforcement as Trump, Kim said. But the tide has now turned.
The latest incident is a “hiccup” in the decades-long relationship between the two nations, but it’s an opportunity to clarify uncertainties around these visa issues, especially for the companies that want to continue to invest in the US, Kim said.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.