BBC: Accounts from a South Korean Employee about the Anxity and Turmoil During a Hyundai Factory Inspection

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            <img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/0960/live/23864c30-8c33-11f0-b391-6936825093bd.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/0960/live(....)" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb(....)" loading="eager" alt="EPA/US Immigration and Customs Enforcement handout A still frame from a video shows a group of men, with their backs to the camera and hands on the side of a white coach with black bars on its windows during an immigration raid at the Hyundai-LG vehicle assembly plant in Ellabell, Georgia. The men are in casual clothing, mostly jeans or slacks and T-shirts." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj" />
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    <p><figcaption class="sc-536eff7b-0 FPsqq">Some 400 state and federal agents gathered outside the factory complex before lining workers up inside</figcaption>
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    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">A South Korean worker who witnessed a massive immigration operation at a car factory in Georgia has told the BBC of panic and confusion as federal agents descended on the site and arrested hundreds.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">The man, who asked to remain anonymous, was at the factory which is jointly owned by Hyundai and LG Energy when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 475 people, including 300 South Korean nationals, with some being led away in chains.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">He said he first became aware of the Thursday morning raid when he and his colleagues received a deluge of phone calls from company bosses. "Multiple phone lines were ringing and the message was to shut down operations," he said.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">As news spread of the raid, the largest of its kind since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the man said panicked family members tried to contact the workers.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">"They were detained and they left all their cell phones in the office. They were getting calls, but we couldn't answer because [the office] was locked," he said.</p>
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    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">According to US officials, some workers tried to flee including several who jumped into a nearby sewage pond. They were separated into groups based on nationality and visa status, before being processed and loaded onto multiple coaches.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">Some 400 state and federal agents had gathered outside the sprawling $7.6bn factory complex, which is about half an hour from the city of Savannah, before entering the site at around 10:30 on Thursday.  </p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">The 3,000-acre complex opened last year and workers there assemble electric vehicles. Immigration officials had been investigating alleged illegal employment practices at an electric vehicle battery plant that is being built in the compound.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">The operation ultimately become the largest single-site immigration enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security investigations, officials said, adding that hundreds of people who were not legally allowed to work in the US were detained.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">BBC Verify has been reviewing footage posted on social media and apparently filmed inside the battery plant.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">One video shows men lined up in a room as a masked man, wearing a vest with the initials HSI - Homeland Security Investigations - and holding a walkie-talkie, tells them: "We're Homeland Security, we have a search warrant for the whole site. We need construction to cease immediately, we need all work to end on the site right now."</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">BBC Verify met the worker, who is legally entitled to work in the United States, in Savannah, the nearest city to the massive car factory.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">The man said he was "shocked but not surprised" by the immigration operation. He said the vast majority of the workers detained were mechanics installing production lines at the site, and were employed by a contractor.</p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">He also said a minority of those arrested had been sent from head office in Seoul and had been carrying out training, which the BBC has not been able to confirm. </p>
    <p class="sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS">The man said he believed nearly all the workers had some legal right to be in the US, but were on the wrong type of visas or their right to work had expired.</p>
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        <img src="https://static.files.bbci.co.uk/bbcdotcom/web/20250828-055926-c20c0c03f5-2.28.1-2/grey-placeholder.png" class="sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script" aria-label="image unavailable" />
        <img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://www.bbci.co.uk/....-....(....)" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/...." loading="lazy" alt="X A masked man wearing a khaki green police vest with HSI in yellow written on the front. He has a police badge pinned to the vest shoulder and is wearing a dark T-shirt." class="sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj" />
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    <p><figcaption class="sc-536eff7b-0 FPsqq">The

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yqg0rln74o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss