Hyundai delays Georgia plant opening after largest US immigration raid
Company says opening will be pushed back by at least two months after 475 people were detained, including about 300 South Koreans, raising diplomatic and investment concerns
Hyundai Motor Co. said the planned opening of its new manufacturing facility in Georgia will be delayed by at least two months after an unprecedented US immigration enforcement operation at the site detained hundreds of workers.
Chief Executive José Muñoz told US media the raid will create a "minimum two to three months delay [in opening the factory] because now all these people want to get back." The company said it was evaluating how to fill positions held by workers who plan to return to South Korea.
Federal immigration authorities detained 475 people at the complex in what officials described as the largest immigration raid in US history. US authorities said many of those detained were not authorized to work in the United States. South Korean officials said roughly 300 of those detained were their citizens who had been sent temporarily to the factory to help bring the site online.
Hyundai has maintained that none of the people arrested at the site were directly employed by the automaker. LG Energy Solution, which co-operates the adjacent battery plant with Hyundai, said many of the employees arrested held various types of visas or had arrived under a visa-waiver programme.
The detentions have strained relations between Washington and Seoul. South Korea's president warned that the raid would discourage foreign investment in the United States and said that if the types of temporary arrangements used to staff the plant were no longer permitted, building factories in the US would become "more difficult... making companies question whether it's worth doing at all." South Korean officials said most of the detained workers were scheduled to return home on Friday; their flights were initially set for Wednesday but were delayed after President Donald Trump proposed they remain in the US to continue training American workers. According to South Korean accounts, all but one person rejected that offer.
The Georgia site is part of a larger industrial complex that Hyundai and partners have touted as one of the state's largest economic development projects, with plans that could eventually create about 8,500 jobs. The enforcement action has raised questions about the viability of an agreement reached earlier this year in which the US agreed to ease some tariff threats in return for promises of major investments by South Korean companies.
Hyundai alone had pledged roughly $26 billion in US investment, including a new steel facility in Louisiana, commitments that were publicly highlighted by the US administration. Company officials said they were working through immediate staffing gaps while assessing the longer-term impact on the project schedule.
US immigration authorities have not said whether any of those detained will face criminal charges. South Korean diplomats have urged that their citizens' rights be respected as they make arrangements to return home. The incident highlights tensions between aggressive immigration enforcement and efforts by the US to attract or secure large-scale foreign industrial investment.