In days after Hyundai raid, ‘overwhelming’ fear seizes immigrants

As federal agents swarmed the Hyundai Metaplant campus near Savannah on Sep. 4, Daniela Rodriguez received a flurry of phone calls. On the other end of the line were frightened workers.

“They were like: ‘OK, I see people running. Should I run? Should I stay here?,’” said Rodriguez, who leads the Savannah-based group Migrant Equity Southeast.

Even immigrants cleared to legally work in the U.S. reached out in distress.

“Their work status didn’t matter. They just panicked,” she said.

Immigrant community advocates say the more pressing concern may be the heightening of an already widespread climate of fear across immigrant populations, a phenomenon that could trigger economic implications beyond Savannah.

Four-hundred seventy five arrests “is mind-boggling,” said William D. Lopez, a University of Michigan expert on large-scale immigration worksite raids. “The scale is enormous.”

“The fear is overwhelming,” Pedraza said. “People don’t know what’s next.”

Fear can make some vulnerable to phony lawyers who claim they are able to help regularize clients’ immigration status, according to Pedraza.

“There is a lot of misinformation and disinformation, and that gives the opportunity for this group of people to scam our communities,” Pedraza said. “People say: ‘Hey, I can help you fix your papers, just deposit $10,000.’

“It’s a huge issue.”

Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck talks with plaintiffs outside the Fulton County Superior Court in December. Miguel Martinez/AJC file

Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-area immigration lawyer, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he was representing two Mexican nationals detained in the raid with valid work permits through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The apprehension of immigrants who appeared to be working legally may add to the immigrant population’s unease.

“This shows that no one is safe,” Pedraza said. “This is not just, you know, people that were standing in a parking lot or in a gas station looking for work. These are established businesses, and these are workers, the vast majority of them with work permits, with some type of lawful status, that have been detained and taken.”

Lopez has studied the short- and long-term aftermath of huge immigration raids. The most direct hit is to the livelihoods of impacted families, he said.

“Families go through this sudden and acute poverty where their income is at least halved, but often completely, 100% gone when there is only one breadwinner,” he said.

The loss of earnings translates into a loss of purchasing power, and a setback for local businesses.

“Immigrants are not only producers, they’re also consumers, meaning there’s just this enormous vacuum of people who spend money in their local economy — not only the 475 people who are not getting gas and going to the grocery stores, but everybody else who’s now scared to leave their home,” Lopez said.