Federal immigration agents raid Hyundai Metaplant site in Georgia
Federal immigration agents Thursday conducted an operation at the Hyundai Motor Group factory site near Savannah, surrounding Georgia’s largest economic development project with a sea of law enforcement officials.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution it conducted a raid of the Hyundai megasite in Bryan County alongside other Homeland Security Investigations officers. The agencies said they have made arrests but did not disclose details.
“We are making many arrests of undocumented individuals,” Steven Schrank, special agent in charge of HSI Atlanta, said in a news conference streamed by local news outlets. “We have encountered many lawful employees working here — United States citizens and lawfully permitted residents — and they are, of course, being released.”
The operation included a criminal search warrant and involved the construction site of a battery factory jointly developed by Hyundai and LG. It did not involve the electric vehicle factory that is operational on the same site. EV production was not impacted by the raid, a Hyundai spokesperson confirmed.
“We are aware of a law enforcement action taking place at the LG Energy Solution and Hyundai battery joint venture construction site in Bryan County, Georgia,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We are cooperating with law enforcement and are committed to abiding by all labor and immigration regulations.”
HL-GA Battery Co., the joint venture helming the battery project, said it is “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities regarding activity at our construction site.”
“To assist their work, we have paused construction,” company spokesperson Mary Beth Kennedy said in a statement. “We do not have further details at this time.”
Georgia State Patrol troopers blocked roads to the Hyundai site, and an agency spokesperson confirmed they were dispatched to assist federal authorities.
ICE spokesperson Lindsay Williams said the search warrant related to “an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.” Further specifics on those alleged crimes were not provided.
“This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy and protecting workers from exploitation,” Williams said in the 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 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 3,000-acre Hyundai Metaplant campus is a $7.6 billion project that is projected to employ 8,500 workers when fully complete. The factory campus — which involved a taxpayer-backed incentive package estimated at $1.8 billion — has been touted as Georgia’s largest economic development project by local and state leaders.
Gov. Brian Kemp’s office and the Georgia Department of Economic Development did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the federal raid.
First announced in May 2022, the project’s scope initially included just an EV assembly plant. But that expanded in May 2023 when Hyundai and LG announced they were building an EV battery manufacturing facility on the same campus.
The two companies are also partnering on a similar battery plant in Bartow County, which is also under construction.
The EV factory’s construction, which met a lightning-fast two-year completion time frame, has drawn scrutiny over worker safety incidents. As of June, that included three deaths and 15 serious construction-related injuries, according to public records reviewed by the AJC.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.
About the Author
Zachary Hansen, a Georgia native, covers economic development and commercial real estate for the AJC. He's been with the newspaper since 2018 and enjoys diving into complex stories that affect people's lives.
