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South Korea: 'many' of its nationals detained in ICE raid on GA Hyundai facility
- perihelions 1y ago> "One of the agents can be heard telling workers they had a search warrant for the entire site and asked that construction “be ceased immediately.”" It's a $7.6 billion factory that produces exclusively electric vehicles, employs "1,400+" (ultimately 8,500 [b]) and is claimed as the "largest economic project in Georgia history". By way of background—here's the wiki, [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group_Metaplant_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group_Metaplant_... And (lots) more background from IEEE Spectrum (someone had recently posted to HN), [b] https://spectrum.ieee.org/hyundai-metaplant-georgia https://spectrum.ieee.org/hyundai-metaplant-georgia ("Hyundai’s Metaplant Seeks Hard-Working Robots")
- jsiwns 1y ago[flagged]
- guywithahat 1y ago[flagged]
- kennywinker 1y agoYou believe them?? The incentives to lie are massive, and the consequences almost non-existent. ICE, by their own account, has a pretty solid track record now of arresting people en masse, to pump up numbers, and then sorting out who is actually working illegally much later… after dehumanizing and incarcerating people unjustly. So, i don’t believe their numbers and i don’t believe that they know who they have arrested.
- jsiwns 1y ago[flagged]
- crooked-v 1y agoIf they're telling the truth. Keep in mind that ICE is already violating a court to not engage in racial profiling in California (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigration-court-order-ice-targeting-people-race-not-enforced-why-rcna227792 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/immigration-court-order...).
- LeafItAlone 1y agoI am the richest person in the world! I’m objectively not, but I claim to be. I trust nothing coming out of a federal level government agency under this administration. They have proven time and time again to lie and then double down when wrong.
- kennywinker 1y agoI believe they could have detained 450 people. I do not believe they found 450 people working there illegally. More than a little skepticism is required when reading a state-run media feed.
- gorbachev 1y agoI bet rather they detained 450 people who didn't carry their papers with them. This has been the pattern of all of the ICE raids anywhere. If you don't look American and don't have a US passport or a valid visa on your person, to the jail you go. They routinely arrest latino US citizens.
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago[dead]
- gamblor956 1y agoICE has also made a number of claims about "illegals" detained in California...who were actually U.S. citizens by birth. When confronted with this, they then attempted to claim that those citizens actually attacked ICE agents. When confronted with video evidence to the contrary, they attempted to pursue charges, and have failed in almost all cases. ICE and ATF claims aren't worth the air they use up to say.
- ranger_danger 1y agoThe story says it's a battery factory, not an EV assembly plant, and that it is currently under construction, and does not yet produce anything.
- warkdarrior 1y agoYes, but to the current US regime any battery larger than a AA one is a threat to national security.
- 1oooqooq 1y agothreat to national bribe security
- skeledrew 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- inquirerGeneral 1y ago[dead]
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoThere's been many many cases where ICE has been confused about what VISAs allow and don't allow. Eg. Hearing of cases where people from my home country were sent home when asked on entry "why are you coming to the USA?" and they answered for "work". Immediate deportation despite the VISA explicitly allowing that. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/australian-with-us-working-visa-detained-insulted-deported https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/australian-w... This is definitely going to have effects for other companies in the USA. Eg. TSMC in the USA is currently being bootstrapped by a Taiwanese workforce. A similar raid there would just shut down the whole TSMC in USA project. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/50-percent-of-tsmcs-arizona-employees-are-from-taiwan-despite-recent-controversies-company-plans-to-hire-more-us-workers-over-time https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/50...
- seanmcdirmid 1y agoYa, its a good bet this is what happened to the South Koreans on site. Since this was under construction, and the construction industry contractors and sub-contractors are known for using lots of undocumented immigrant labor, ICE was probably there to catch them.
- ajross 1y agoICE has been widely accused of working on internal quotas. It's likely that they just don't care. They found foreigners working, so into the pens they go. The fact that these are engineers brought in to supervise construction doesn't enter into the picture.
- MarcusE1W 1y agoIn fairness, it shouldn’t. I think it is acceptable that the foreign workers have valid US work visas and can demonstrate that. Maybe constitution plays sometimes fast and loose with work visas, but that does not automatically make it ok. I have worked abroad many times and work permits were always under heavy scrutiny by my own company, to the degree that we send one unhappy soul home mid week because some regulations were not met and he came back week smiling because he got a pay rise as comparable rated as local was a requirement.
- jacquesm 1y agoHow resilient is a nation state? This is a question I keep asking myself. I was kind of surprised how the USA bounced back from Trump I. But I really wonder if there is going to be a similar recovery this time around. The amount of outright destruction is overwhelming. So, you raid the Hyundai facility. And then in a few years time you wonder why foreign companies no longer want to invest into factories on US soil. The knock on effect of all of this stuff is enormous and the consequences are going to be many years in the coming. And yet, it all just happens, there is no meaningful pushback against any of this.
- serf 1y ago> I was kind of surprised how the USA bounced back from Trump I. what'd we bounce into? what did we bounce back from? what effects are you talking about specifically. I work in aerospace and the sentiment was exactly opposite. People cheered both Trump elections and were dead terrified of a blue win ruining contracts and business. I don't ask because I am overtly political, I ask because I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose..
- krapp 1y ago> I think it's fascinating that both sides seem to think we're a stone's throw from the apocalypse.. which very much seems to be projected onto the voter base on purpose.. Projected by whom, by what means, and to what end? Consider that both sides may have legitimate reasons to be concerned with this term that didn't apply to Trump's first term, and that what you see isn't simply some form of mass-manipulation or "projection onto the voter base."
- nkozyra 1y agoIndeed, the 2nd term is a radical departure from the first, which was more muted than most would have expected given the campaign. The 2nd term is making fundamental changes to our economy that carry a promise of bearing fruit. Not only are those promises generally contested by economic experts, the short-term results have been unsurprisingly poor.
- LexiMax 1y agoI imagine that this post will be flagged or downvoted off the homepage by fellow travelers, so I will take this opportunity to promote the active front page as a way to bypass their attempts at censorship. https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active
- cosmicgadget 1y agoI hope they don't raid the Foxconn megafactory in Wisconsin, it'll really deter foreign investment in US manufacturing.
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoSarcastic post? After a much much ballyhoooed announcement during Trump1, and many many tax incentives, it still seems like there's not much here. https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/what-happened-to-foxconn-a-look-at-the-1-2-billion-spent-and-where-it-all-went/3759518/ https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/what-happened-to-foxco... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38518446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38518446 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37392169 But yes, raiding that sure would be another massive hit, further helping destroy America's reputation & isolating us from the world. Which based on all evidence & actions, is what this administration is doing: destroying the US empire's soft power as fast as possible. With Gabbard working basically for the opposition to make sure foreign influence campaigns & meddling to have free reign to run amock as they please, as well.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoComment was meant honestly (deterring onshoring), but yes I was being sarcastic about the Foxconn thing, for the purposes of highlighting how honest/effective these efforts have been.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoCan we fix the title so it doesn't seem like the story is based out of South Korea? South Korea says 'many' of its nationals detained in raid on GA Hyundai facility
- nothercastle 1y agoHyundai has a history of lax law interpretations. See child labor issues in 2022. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immigration-hyundai/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-immi... It wouldn’t surprise me if they were overly aggressive in what they used visas for. It’s also possible they hired a low quality firm to do their visas (some of the big 5s subcontract to some terrible sub tiers) and they simply did the paperwork wrong. Similar situation have happened to my coworkers when going on foreign assignment.
- notahacker 1y agoICE doesn't have the strongest record when it comes to paperwork either. It's possible Hyundai screwed up (and the slap on the wrist they got in 2022 isn't much of a deterrent), but it's also possible that ICE responded to someone suggesting Hyundai might have illegals amongst its workforce by indiscriminately detaining all foreign nationals there...
- AnotherGoodName 1y agoThe ESTA VISA waiver which is the easiest form of entry to the USA for close allies like South Korea explicitly allows business activities. The idea is that it's meant to be easy to come to the USA for consultation, conferences, trade shows etc. The most basic VISA for countries like South Korea explicitly enables this. If they came to the USA legally it's hard to understand how they didn't have the right to do things like consult on the build-out of the new factory. If anyone wants to argue the ESTA doesn't allow this (despite the explicit wording that it does) you're basically saying no more international business conferences and no more business trips to USA offices without a very heavy weight multiyear immigration process. Which is fine if you want to come out and suggest that. It'll kill what's left of Vegas, the airlines, conference centers, etc. It would also harm any international business in the USA but if you really really want to go around saying "ICE are right to detain the South Koreans here" I'm OK with that. I'll make sure that people from my home country understand that the USA is completely closed for business.
- 29athrowaway 1y ago
- cschep 1y agoWill this administration start costing serious people money enough that the other billionaires will get involved to kick out the nationalist idiots? That'd be nice. It's too bad we need that to be the case but.. would be a nice side effect.
- giraffe_lady 1y agoNo, because an unstable regime and desperate economy increases the relative power of billionaires even if it decreases their absolute wealth somewhat. You don't see oligarchs abandoning russia en masse due to the constraints the system places on their growth. So even if this ends up direly for some of them individually, they all personally are confident that won't be them. And as long as it isn't this aligns with their general interests.
- rchaud 1y agoThe rich in America make their money through stock market pumps and dumps. Just keep the minimum wage frozen and the tax cuts coming and they won't say a word. As long as the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labour Statistics keep saying the right things, the market will go up. And if they don't say these things, the president will replace them with somebody who will.
- gorbachev 1y agoWhat a way to encourage manufacturing within the United States!
- sparrish 1y ago[flagged]
- gorbachev 1y agoDid they arrest anyone who was making hiring decisions or anyone whose job it is to verify whether employees are legally allowed to work in the United States at that construction site?
- sparrish 1y agoLikely not. They probably should though. Regardless, this is going to cost Hyundai a lot of time and money, which will disincentivize them from hiring illegal workers again. That's good for legal workers and America.
- bix6 1y agoYeah it’s really great for food prices too. You checked your veggies lately?
- LeafItAlone 1y agoNo, after four straight years of complaining about grocery store prices, they stopped caring about them some time between November 05, 2024 and January 20, 2025. Since then, a higher price apparently means “Great”-ness.
- bix6 1y agoLmao you’re a king!
- 1y ago
- mallowdram 1y agoUnder the pretext of incompetence is the administration simply engaging in destroying the US economy to create a fortress situation in collapse that allows implementation of military jurisdiction? Clearly, there's a program running with an endgame.
- bix6 1y ago[flagged]
- mallowdram 1y agoI agree, it's about converting the state to feudal, apparent regulation, under the table crypto Cyprus fealty pledges.
- PhantomHour 1y agoTwo things to bear in mind here: 1) As much as JD Vance and his puppetmaster wishes they were the president, they are not. The tech fascism isn't happening, just regular kind. What you're seeing here with the "deregulation" is just a big fat scoop of plain corruption. Give Herr Führer a nice golden trinket and he deregulates your industry or tariffs your competitors. 2) While they are deregulating heavily, there's absolutely zero sense of "Small Government" going on. You need only look at the oppression of groups like LGBT people. There's no bigger government than controlling which toilets people use or inspecting the genitals of children if they want to participate in sports. And outside of LGBT rights, just look at the whole situation around Israel. Literal secret police going around arresting people for non-violent protest and simple thoughtcrime.
- Hikikomori 1y agoJD will win in 2028 even if trump survives that long, as long as their election interference goes unchecked.
- bix6 1y agoThis is my concern too. Even the midterms. But hopefully enough people will be fired up and watching this time.
- linuxftw 1y agoThe whole idea of building manufacturing in the US is to employ Americans. And if they can't find enough qualified Americans, it's because WAGES ARE TOO LOW.
- ebiester 1y agoThe problem isn't wages. The problem is that Hyundai people have the knowledge about how to build a Hyundai production plant, just like Americans will go abroad working for American companies.
- 29athrowaway 1y agoThe Hyundai HQ is in South Korea, you can expect that they will bring people from their HQ to oversee their operations and to do knowledge transfer. It is common sense.
- linuxftw 1y agoSure, but that doesn't seem to apply here whatosever. 475 people isn't 'knowledge transfer.'
- runako 1y agoHonestly this could be a simple as "all the docs for how to do this are in Korean, and doing the job effectively involves communicating with HQ in Korean."
- 29athrowaway 1y agoIt can be, the plant just opened and they hired thousands of people.
- ethagknight 1y ago'Many' in the context of a claim of illegal detention, can and should be given a more precise number, otherwise it's fair to assume a narrative is being sold. ATF Atlanta claims 450 workers are 'unlawful aliens'. A counter claim should be specific or get tossed out. 10s? 100s? Vague damage control is never a good sign. SK embassy and Hyundai itself have significant liability in admitting or even acknowledging employment of illegals.
- kennywinker 1y agoThe liars can say whatever they want, but if you want to counter them you have to be very specific. You’ve just constructed a trap that encourages lies. In less than 24 hours ATF atlanta is confidant all 450 people arrested were working illegally? Not likely possible, so they just lied. But if you want to refute that you have to have a specific number. So your options are go slow, take a week to validate the legal status of all 450 people, or lie also.
- ethagknight 1y agoYou assume ATF is lying at face value, thats fine. Remember that they also have access to paystub info, tax filings, etc, for workers at this plant. They already know who they are looking for. It's plain foolishness to think this was just a random checkpoint. An appropriate response from the employer is, "We have thorough records on all our employment, we take employment laws very seriously, and we believe to the best of our knowledge that our employees are in proper legal standing in compliance with the laws of the state of Georgia." (update: from the article, they say are committed and cooperating) Also, Biden-era Dept of Labor accused Hyundai of using child labor throughout its supply chain. UNDER THE AGE OF 14 in an auto factory. But sure, let's presume innocence and assume the feds are the illegal ones on this next turn. >>“Our investigation found SL Alabama engaged in oppressive child labor by employing young workers under the minimum age of 14, and by employing minors under 16 in a manufacturing occupation,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Kenneth Stripling in Birmingham, Alabama. “Employers are responsible for knowing who is working in their facilities, ensuring that those individuals are of legal working age, and that their employment complies with all federal, state and local labor laws.” https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/WHD/WHD20221011 https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/WHD/WHD20221011
- mystraline 1y agoSo, there's supposedly all these millions of 'illegals' working everywhere. So someone hired them. What business managers and leaders are being charged with hiring illegal workers? Do we even have a single manager/leader/owner charged?
- antonymoose 1y agoThat’s the sad part of all this that enrages me, we deport a dishwasher or a roofer but the criminals getting rich off of their exploitation get off free in virtually all cases. Locally, we had an HSI raid on a business that had 10+ illegal underage workers living in an illegal bunkhouse built in the back of their building. No criminal charges for the owner or any managers, no fines that have been reported for the numerous amount of code violations in their flophouse, and every day I drive by the building on my way to work and a 100k truck + very expensive boat are parked out front. It’s an affront to justice to see these crooks getting rich and laughing to the bank!
- giraffe_lady 1y agoIt is actually even worse than this! Owners intentionally hire undocumented workers knowing they'll be able to exploit them because they can't call enforcement for safety or labor violations because of the risk they put them in. Being able to use ICE to resolve any brewing labor disputes or unionization efforts is a sweet perk too. And they love this shit btw. It's not just cold opportunistic use of the incentives and systems they find. They love the unjust power it gives them in their personal domains and over the people around them. It's why they so reliably support trump in the end. They want serfs and he wants them to have serfs.
- FireBeyond 1y agoYeah, the raid on Tyson that netted 950 undocumented workers came after a slew of OSHA complaints and had very "won't someone rid us of these meddlesome workers" vibes to it. Just like at Hormel. Complaining about weird sicknesses after inhaling aerosolized pork brain all day? "DHS, come get these non-team players out the way".
- csours 1y agoYou have to live in the world that you create.
- dsign 1y agoI'm made of anti-Abrahamic fermions, but in this instance I can't stop thinking of Emma Lazarus rising from the grave and striking down her own words, to instead inscribe Jeremiah 2:5 on the plaque at the base of the statue: "What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols..."
- nabla9 1y agoThe US will not rank very high on annual the Economist autocratic government rankings. Low competence. Diseases will spread rampant. Wealth disappears in crypto schemes.
- theturtle 1y ago[flagged]
- lvl155 1y agoIf US invested in training and education, we might have the necessary labor to lead manufacturing. Sadly, that’s not the case. However, this country loves to give out jobs to immigrants even in cases where you’re looking at equal talent. Look at all the jobs handed out to the Chinese and Indians (as well as Canadians) over the past three decades. On Wall Street, they blatantly favored Chinese-speaking talent because they wanted to attract businesses in China. Same goes for graduate schools. They all wanted that Chinese money. I am not saying it’s right but this country says one thing and does another. No one told Walmart to destroy retail/manufacturing in the US and ship them out to China. No one. Meanwhile, Walmart heirs are on and on about some “environmental” values while flaunting their art collection on national TV.