Hyundai raid in US stuns Seoul

The United States has for years pressured South Korea to invest billions of dollars in US industry, a push that has only increased over the past few months.

- CHOE SANG-HUN

That made it all the more shocking for South Koreans when they learned that US immigration officials had raided the construction site of a major Hyundai-LG plant in Georgia on Thursday, arresting hundreds of South Korean citizens.

US officials said they had arrested 475 people during the raid, in Ellabell, Georgia, because they were in the country illegally or working unlawfully. Most of them were South Korean nationals who had been sent to help finish building an electric car battery factory, according to industry officials familiar with the project. Most, they said, were subcontractors working for carmaker Hyundai and battery maker LG Energy Solution, South Korean companies that share ownership of the plant.

The raid came at a sensitive time in trade relations, unsettling South Korean businesses investing in the United States. Those companies face a unique problem under President Donald Trump. While encouraging them to invest in the United States, his administration has also imposed heavy tariffs and drastically tightened visa allocations, making it more difficult and costly for them to ship components and find technicians to build their factories.