On September 4, 2025, the US federal authorities launched a large-scale immigration enforcement operation at a Hyundai-LG Energy Solution battery factory under construction in Ellabell, Georgia. Unprecedentedly, about 475 workers were arrested at the same construction site at one time, among whom more than 300 were of South Korean nationality. This move quickly triggered a strong response from the South Korean government and posed new challenges to the economic and diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The entire story of the large-scale raid
Federal law enforcement agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), among others, jointly participated in the operation. According to the US side, this raid was not a spur-of-the-moment but the result of the month-long “Operation Low Voltage” investigation. The public footage of the on-site arrest process of personnel suspected of visa invalidation or illegal work shows that the workers were handcuffed and sent to buses in batches. After this scene was widely spread, it raised public doubts about the way law enforcement is carried out.
Hyundai Motor Group said that the arrested individuals were not its officially employed staff but mostly subcontractors or members of external teams. The company emphasized that it will cooperate with the investigation to ensure that its partners comply with the law.
Diplomatic response
After the incident, the South Korean government promptly dispatched its Foreign Minister to the United States for negotiations and reached an agreement with the US side: to arrange for about 300 South Korean nationals who were arrested to return home by chartered flights through a “voluntary departure” approach. Kang Hoon-sik, the chief secretary of the presidential Office of South Korea, said that the relevant “repatriation negotiations have been basically completed” and it is expected that he can board the plane and return home this week.
At the same time, South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-ju expressed regret over the phone to the US Deputy Secretary of State for Political Affairs, pointing out that this incident occurred during the period of substantive cooperation after the summit of the leaders of the two countries, which could easily undermine mutual trust and investment confidence.
The South Korean side also emphasized that it hopes these workers can legally return to the United States in the future and looks forward to the US providing clearer and more friendly guidance on the visa system to prevent similar situations from happening again.
The US position
The Trump administration insists that this operation is legal and reasonable and is a necessary enforcement against violations of immigration regulations. Border affairs official Tom Horman said that the United States will step up workplace law enforcement in the future and severely punish enterprises that employ illegal workers.
Homeland Security Secretary Christy Noam also emphasized at the Five Eyes Alliance meeting that this large-scale arrest would not affect foreign investment, and the United States still welcomes and stresses the importance of legal norms. The president himself stated on social media: “We welcome foreign technical talents to invest legally in the United States, but we must ‘respect U.S. immigration laws’ and’ give priority to hiring Americans’.”
Market and investment concerns
This event occurred just 10 days ago, when South Korea and the United States had just held a summit and committed to deepening green transformation and investment cooperation with the US side, including South Korea’s announcement of advancing a $350 billion investment agreement with the US. Nowadays, the sudden enforcement actions have led many South Korean enterprises to reassess the risks of cooperation in the United States.
The academic community points out that this incident has had a cooling effect on foreign investment sentiment and has fueled concerns over increasingly strict regulation of the United States. Experts from the Korea International Trade Association believe that the contradictory signals from the United States, which “welcomes investment and technology but blocks the entry of technical personnel”, may deter enterprises.
Hyundai and LG Energy have thus suspended their employees’ business trips to the United States. LG has further postponed the production plan of its battery factory until 2026, and the related supply chain has also been affected.
Legal and social perspectives
The legal community believes that the majority of the arrested South Korean workers held B-1 or ESTA short-term visas and illegally provided labor at construction sites, and their identity verification was rather complicated. Some professional talents originally entered the country for testing and debugging. The difficulty and time constraints in obtaining visas led to the occurrence of violations, which have also raised wider society concerns about fairness, regulation, and the human cost behind such incidents.
Diplomatic and business groups have called for the establishment of a more transparent and flexible visa system in the future, allowing short-term technicians to legally cross borders to support cross-border project construction and prevent damage to investment and talent.
Summary
The most notable impact of this large-scale law enforcement operation is that it has triggered diplomatic unrest between South Korea and the United States and served as a warning for the reform of investment and immigration systems between the two countries. Returning to the rational level, the incident may also leave an opportunity for the two countries to promote more institutional innovations and cooperation mechanisms.
If both sides can transform short-term shocks into the impetus for establishing a more mature visa approval and corporate compliance system, it may still have a positive impact on future industrial cooperation and regional development.
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