SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities on Thursday detained about 475 people during an immigration raid at a sprawling Georgia site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in southeast Georgia, according to a Homeland Security official.
Steven Schrank, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, said at a news briefing Friday that the majority of the people detained were from South Korea.
The investigation has been ongoing for several months, with authorities receiving leads from community members and former workers, Schrank said.
South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong described the number of detained South Koreans as "large” though he did not provide an exact figure.
He said the detained workers were part of a “network of subcontractors,” and that the employees worked for a variety of different companies on the site.
Thursday’s raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history.
Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea’s biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.
The joint venture, HL-GA Battery Company, "is cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities," the company said in a statement. "To assist their work, we have paused construction."
In a statement to The Associated Press, LG said it was “closely monitoring the situation and gathering all relevant details.” It said it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.
Operations at Hyundai's EV manufacturing plant weren't interrupted, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson.
"This did not impact people getting to work," Johnson said in an email. "Production and normal office hours had already begun for the day" when authorities shut down access.
ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed that federal authorities conducted an enforcement operation at the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) site west of Savannah, Georgia. He said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant.
Georgia State Patrol troopers blocked roads to the Hyundai site. They were dispatched to assist federal authorities in serving "a criminal search warrant," the Georgia Department of Public Safety said in a statement.
Video posted to social media Thursday showed workers in yellow safety vests lined up as a man wearing a face mask and a tactical vest with the letters HSI, which stands for Homeland Security Investigations, tells them: "We're Homeland Security. We have a search warrant for the whole site."
"We need construction to cease immediately," the man says. "We need all work to end on the site right now."
President Donald Trump's administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.
The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.
