Hyundai-LG Plant Raid Reveals Fresh Risks for Foreign Investments in the US

The largest US immigration action in recent history has sowed fresh doubts about America's reliability as an investment destination.

- Cory Alpert

The images out of the US this week were harrowing: armored vehicles, drones and helicopters circling a Hyundai plant as hundreds of subcontractors, many of them South Korean technicians, were detained in the sweltering late-summer heat of Georgia.

On Sept 4, immigration agents detained 475 workers, including over 300 South Koreans, at a Hyundai-LG battery plant under construction.

This was the largest single-site immigration enforcement action in the history of the US Department of Homeland Security. It was also among its most publicized.

A NEW MESSAGE TO FOREIGN FIRMS

It's unclear if any US labor laws were actually violated.

A lawyer for some of the South Koreans involved claimed they were there legally undertaking work authorized under their visa program, but the US Department of Homeland Security said the operation targeted workers who had exceeded visa limits or violated terms of entry.

Regardless, it quickly became clear this was not just about immigration enforcement. It was a warning shot to foreign firms.

This is the paradox at the heart of the Donald Trump administration's economic policy.

On the one hand, it wants foreign companies to pour capital into the US—to build factories, expand infrastructure and create jobs for Americans. On the other, it is wielding immigration enforcement in ways that undermine efforts to attract those very investments.

Factories do not appear overnight. They require skilled contractors to install complex equipment, supervise construction and train American workers.

Most of the Hyundai employees caught up in the raid were on visa waivers or B-1 visas—a category that allows foreigners to enter the US for short stints to supervise, advise, take steps to open facilities or conduct training, but not to perform manual labor themselves.