Hyundai on Thursday said work on its Georgia battery plant where hundreds of workers were detained in an immigration raid will be delayed by up to three months.
Hyundai Chief Executive Officer José Muñoz said the enforcement action leaves the battery plant, which Hyundai operates with LG Energy Solutions, short of workers, Bloomberg first reported.
“This is going to give us minimum two to three months delay, because now all these people want to get back,” Muñoz told reporters in Detroit on Thursday. “Then you need to see how can you fill those positions. And for the most part, those people are not in the U.S.”
Hyundai told CBS News it had no further comment on the matter. LG Energy Solutions did not immediately responded to CBS News’ requests for comment.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained some 475 people suspected of illegally living and working in the U.S. at the Georgia plant earlier this month. Of them, more than 300 were South Koreans, according to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun.
On Thursday, after the U.S. and South Korea reached a deal to release the workers in ICE custody, the more than 300 South Korean nationals were set to be taken home on a charter flight.
A poll conducted in South Korea found that almost 60% of respondents said they were disappointed by the U.S. crackdown, calling the enforcement action “excessive.” Roughly 31% of respondents called the ICE action “inevitable” and said they understood why it took place.
South Korean officials say the immigration action could chill the nation’s investments in the U.S.
Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.
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