ICE Conducts Largest-Ever Raid at Georgia Hyundai Plant

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We get an update on the largest-ever single-site immigration raid in U.S. history that unfolded Thursday when federal agents arrested nearly 500 workers at a Hyundai facility in Georgia. Most workers were Korean nationals who were building an electric vehicle battery plant. Hyundai is investing over $12 billion in a record-setting economic development deal with the state, and the South Korean government recently agreed to invest hundreds of billions more in the U.S. in exchange for lower tariffs. The two countries' relationship is now uncertain, as South Korean politicians lambasted the raid and sent a charter plane to repatriate the Korean workers who are being detained at a GEO Group-run Georgia ICE jail that ICE recently found in violation of federal safety standards. None of the detained workers have been charged; many reportedly hold valid U.S. work permits.

"The circumstances of the raid were just absolutely abusive, not only in their scope and just the sheer size of it, but the way that the folks at the Hyundai plant were treated by law enforcement," says Meredyth Yoon of the Atlanta chapter of the civil rights organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice. Witnesses describe heavily armed federal agents who threatened and even tear-gassed workers. "It is disturbing to see hundreds of people arrested, shackled at their waist and ankles, and loaded into buses and taken to an abusive detention center."

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