The Hyundai Plant Raided By Immigration Authorities

[Scene: A news studio or a broadcast setting. The host, Jessica Mendoza, is speaking.]

Jessica Mendoza: Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Monday, September 8th.

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Jessica Mendoza: Coming up on the show, how the immigration rate at a Hyundai plant unfolded. We'll be right back.

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Jessica Mendoza: On Friday, the day after the raid, our colleague Sharon went down to see the Hyundai plant, which is in a town called Elabel, Georgia. It's a rural Georgia community. So once you get outside the plant, it's, there's some dirt roads, the main intersection in town. There's a gas station pizza place combo. a Dollar General, but then the plant is this very big, freshly paved roads, new landscaping, really modern. So it's quite a contrast. The roads in the complex are named after some of Hyundai models and ventures like Kia Drive and Elantra Avenue The plant is in part a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solutions both South Korean manufacturing giants Construction on the plant began in 2022. And what is it that this plant produces? Is it cars? Is it batteries? Yeah, right now the plant makes cars. And the plan is in the future to make both electric cars and the batteries that power those cars. And so the part that's under construction now is the battery portion of the complex. Hyundai brings the auto expertise, while LG brings the electric battery know-how. In October 2024, the complex came online and started producing cars for Hyundai's electric vehicle lineup. And it's been a boon to manufacturing in Georgia.

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Jessica Mendoza: What was sort of the idea behind building it here and like what are they hoping to achieve with it? So the South generally has been a big hotspot for manufacturing, not just auto manufacturing, but especially auto manufacturing. And so Georgia did a lot to recruit Hyundai. They're getting some big tax breaks. The idea that there's a big and ready labor workforce there. Hyundai says that once construction is done, the Georgia plant will employ 8,500 workers and be able to make half a million vehicles a year. Republicans in the state have pointed to the factory as evidence that it's possible to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Republicans champion American manufacturing, and so this is a win for that way of doing business.

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Jessica Mendoza: What about President Trump? Has he said anything about the plant? Yeah, I mean, he's talked about this plant as being evidence of what, you know, what the United States can do. So when he talks about his tariff policies bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., this is the type of thing that he points to is, you know, the trade wars that have caused so much turmoil. Ultimately, he would say, will lead auto companies and others to expanding their manufacturing here.

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Jessica Mendoza: This investment is a clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work. But despite Republican support for the plant, it's been a source of local tensions over jobs and immigration. One candidate for a Georgia congressional seat said she alerted DHS to undocumented workers at the site. So there have been some local politicians, some local unions who have complained about the workers at the plant being potentially not having proper documentation. You know, there's a union official who said our union guys were laid off and those should be their jobs. So there's certainly tensions. And it's not clear if either of those things are what spurred the investigation. But ultimately, they have been looking at this for a while.

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Jessica Mendoza: Yeah, I mean, certainly there's been a lot of consternation around this factory. DHS didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. So take us to the day of the raid. What happened when the Department of Homeland Security showed up? Yeah, I mean, they had a warrant and the warrant was for four workers that they suspected of not working there legally. And so they came on site and that was in the morning when the immigration officials got on site. They separated people by nationality. They checked paperwork. They checked status. But the overall operation, of course, targeted almost 500 people. So it became much bigger than what the initial warrant called for. It took place for hours. It happened outside. So it was hot. It was a Georgia afternoon in late summer. So it was a very uncomfortable, kind of unpleasant experience. Some workers attempted to run away, and a handful jumped into a sewage pond. The Justice Department said officials chased after them in a boat. Ultimately, how many people were detained? It was 475 300 were South Korean nationals Hyundai has said that none of the workers detained were Hyundai employees LG said, you know, some were LG employees, some were contractors. So it was kind of a mix of employees. So like not all of them necessarily who were working there worked for the companies behind the plant, is what the companies are saying.

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Jessica Mendoza: Yeah, and a project like this would have a lot of subcontractors on site. Do we have any sense of what they were doing, like what their jobs were at the plant? That's going to be part of the investigation. I mean, so were they working? Were they building things? The contention of some of the local union leaders is that these were people who were doing the physical work of putting things together, be it pipe fitting, doing it, you know, that kind of work.

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Jessica Mendoza: On Friday, federal officials held a press conference. Stephen Schrank, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, said that those arrested on Thursday had allegedly crossed the border illegally, entered through a visa waiver program that prohibited them from working, or had overstayed their visas. This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians and Americans. ICE basically declared success. They said, you know, this is us cracking down. You need to be in this country legally if you're going to be here. And, you know, this is this is us doing our job.

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Jessica Mendoza: After the break, what the immigration raid at Hyundai's plant could mean for manufacturing in America.

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Jessica Mendoza: The raid comes at a time when many foreign companies have pledged investments in U.S. manufacturing to curry favor with the Trump administration. Hyundai, for instance, announced $26 billion of investment during his second term, including expanding the Georgia plant. It's a massive investment for Hyundai to realize its vision, for which it's already sunk billions of dollars into. It needs to get this battery plant up and running. Georgia has certainly invested a lot and made this an important piece of its economic strategy. So the ability to move this forward is important both for the state and for the companies.

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Jessica Mendoza: So have there been concerns, you know, going back to the raid, have there been concerns that this type of action from the Trump administration puts those investments, those relationships in danger? Yes, and that goes beyond the auto industry. You know, a number of companies from other countries rely on their own nationals to set up shop, particularly in cases where there's sensitive intellectual property. They looking at this and asking can we be next You know are we vulnerable to this type of thing Are we able to do business the way we always done business

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Jessica Mendoza: What has President Trump said about that Well, he said that this is a case of, you know, it's not a broad attack on manufacturing, you know, on foreign manufacturers in the U.S., but rather a case of there were some companies that weren't following procedure. There were people working here who shouldn't have been working here, and ICE dealt with that. And so he's tried to cast it as like, this isn't an attack on companies or foreign companies, but rather dealing with a particular issue at this site.

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Jessica Mendoza: On Friday, in the Oval Office, Trump defended the raid. They were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing his job. On Sunday, Trump said on social media that foreign companies' investments were welcome, and that the U.S. would make it easy to bring skilled workers from abroad legally. He added, quote, What we ask in return is that you hire and train American workers.

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Jessica Mendoza: Could we say anything about what the raid might have done to the relationship between the U.S. and Hyundai specifically? It's early to tell. Hyundai has really made a point to say that its workers weren't involved. And this is true for any company. I don't think there's any big company or any senior executive that wants to get in a dispute with the Trump administration. You know, the Trump administration is in the middle of negotiating some big trade deals.

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Jessica Mendoza: What kind of impact, if any, could raids like this one have on potential investments from foreign companies like Hyundai? You know, I think some of it depends. As the details of this come out, I think the question is, you know, was this site an egregious violator of labor laws? And is it something where other companies say, we would have never found ourselves in this position? Or were the companies operating here, operating in a way that many other companies operate? And, you know, is it more seen as a signal that suddenly someone else could be next and everybody's vulnerable? I mean, I think there's still a lot to be learned about the nature of the people working there. What were they doing? What was their documentation? South Korean officials have said that, you know, they really want to work on making sure this doesn't happen again. And even President Trump in recent days said, you know, we have an excellent relationship with South Korea. We expect things to continue. They're one of our prime trading partners. So I think both sides are working very hard to say, you know, this isn't a fissure in the relationship between the two countries or between Hyundai and the United States. But at the same time, there's a lot of hand wringing, you know, because this did have an impact on two big South Korean companies. And then this balance between wanting foreign investment in the U.S., but also wanting more U.S. workers employed. And so that's another point, big point of tension.

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Jessica Mendoza: Yeah, seems like there are a lot of kinks still to work out. Yes. Yeah, for sure.

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Jessica Mendoza: On Sunday night, the South Korean government said it had reached a deal with the U.S. for the release of the roughly 300 detained South Koreans. They're expected to return home on a voluntary basis, avoiding deportation. A Korean diplomat in Washington said the country is chartering a plane and hopes the detained workers can return to South Korea on Wednesday.

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Jessica Mendoza: This episode has been updated to reflect the correct pronunciation of Hyundai. That's all for today, Monday, September 8th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and The Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Ryan Felton, Timothy W. Martin, Ji Young-Seon, Da-Sul Yoon, and Liz Esley-White. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

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Jessica Mendoza: [Closing music plays]

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