Washington-A great raid to the search for undocumented workers ended 475 detainees, mostly South Koreans, in a Hyundai-LG battery plant that is being built in the southern state of Georgia, an American official said on Friday.
President Donald Trump has promised to carry out the largest deportation campaign in the history of the United States.
The operation was carried out on Thursday and was a consequence of a “criminal investigation on allegations of illegal labor practices and serious federal crimes,” said Steven Schrank, a special agent of the National Security Department (DHS) in Atlanta.
“In fact, this was the largest operation in a single place in the history of national security research,” Schrank said at a press conference.
300 South Korean citizens
South Korea expressed “concern and regret” for the raid before the United States embassy in Seoul and urged Washington to respect the rights of its citizens.
“The economic activities of our investors and the legitimate rights and interests of our nationals should not be unfairly violated in the course of the application of the law in the United States,” the spokesman of the South Korean Foreign Ministry, Lee Jae-Woong, told journalists.
Schrank said the 475 detainees at the plant of the joint company Hyundai Motor-LG Energy Solution in the town of Ellabell were “illegally present in the United States” and “working illegally.”
“There were a majority of Korean citizens between 475,” he said.
In Seoul, a source familiar with the matter said that around 300 South Korean citizens had been arrested.
Schrank declared that he could not give a breakdown of how many of those arrested in the plant, aimed at supplying batteries for electric vehicles, were employed by Hyundai, LG or were subcontractors.
In the hands of ICE
The detainees have been made available to the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE) for possible expulsion, he said.
“We are sending a clear and unequivocal message that those who exploit our workforce, undermine our economy and violate federal laws will account,” he said.
South Korea, the fourth largest economy in Asia, is a key car manufacturer and electronics producer, with multiple plants in the United States.
South Korean companies have invested billions of dollars to build factories in the United States in order to access the US market and avoid Trump’s tariff threats.
In a statement, Hyundai said he was “closely monitoring” the situation in Georgia’s work and “working to understand the specific circumstances.”
