Executives and other employees of a major South Korean battery maker were among those swept up in an immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia on Thursday, the manufacturer, LG Energy Solution, said. A U.S. agency said that hundreds of people had been apprehended in the operation.
Federal agents took people into custody at a construction site for the electric vehicle battery plant in Ellabell, Ga., near Savannah, according to Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security investigations for Georgia.
LG Energy Solution, which co-owns the plant with Hyundai Motor Group, said in a statement that Hyundai employees had also been taken into custody. Hyundai did not respond to a request for comment.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday that South Koreans were among those in custody, without detailing how many. Mr. Schrank told reporters at the plant on Thursday that some U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents had been detained and were being released.
The operation, part of President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, caused diplomatic alarm in South Korea. Just over a week earlier, Mr. Trump hosted President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea at the White House, where the South Korean leader pledged to invest an additional $150 billion in the United States, including in battery manufacturing.
The lithium-ion battery plant, which predated Mr. Lee’s pledge, was expected to start operating next year. It is the kind of large-scale, job-creating investment that the United States has pushed for from South Korea and other nations.
The Ellabell site is part of one of Georgia’s largest manufacturing plants. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, has promoted the $7.6 billion Hyundai E.V. factory there as the largest economic development project in state history.
The immigration operation brought construction to a halt at the battery plant, known as HL-GA Battery Company. A spokeswoman, Mary Beth Kennedy, said in a statement that the plant was cooperating with the authorities.
About 450 “unlawful aliens” were apprehended in the raid by officers from agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the F.B.I., according to a social media post by the Atlanta division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was also part of the operation.
South Korean Embassy and consular officials were dispatched to the site from Washington and Atlanta, Lee Jaewoong, a spokesman for South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said at a news conference on Friday. He expressed concern that South Koreans had been detained.
“The economic activities of our investment companies and the rights and interests of our citizens must not be unjustly violated during U.S. law enforcement proceedings,” he said.
LG Energy Solution said that it was working with the South Korean government to get its employees, as well as Hyundai’s, released.
John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news.
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