GOP Georgia congressman wants to get South Korean workers back to raided Hyundai plant

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) hopes South Korean nationals who were detained in a massive immigration raid earlier this month can return to work at the Hyundai-LG battery plant near Savannah, which is in Carter’s district.

Carter, speaking in an exclusive interview Friday, told The Telegraph he wants to bring back some of the workers who were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Sept. 4 raid.

The raid was the largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE, with 475 people being arrested, U.S. officials told media outlets after the raid.

Some of those detained were Hyundai workers who have worked on similar plants around the world and have specialized skills needed to complete the plant, which is still under construction, according to media reports and attorneys representing some of the workers. Many of those same workers were needed to train long-term American workers who were to be hired when the plant was completed.

The raid caused concern due to the billions of dollars South Korean businesses, including Hyundai, have invested in Georgia, and the long trade relationship between South Korea and Georgia, according to WABE, an NPR affiliate station based in Atlanta.

Now, state and local leaders alongside federal representatives from the area, including Carter, are trying to manage the fallout in order to keep construction on track and bring the 8,500 promised jobs to rural south Georgia.

Carter says he wants to get detained South Korean nationals back to the plant

Carter said some of the South Korean nationals who were detained are needed to complete the battery plant on time and train workers.

Following the raid, the more than 300 South Korean nationals who were detained were flown back to the country on a chartered flight in accordance with an agreement between the U.S. and South Korea, according to media reports.

“We want to get these people back,” Carter said. “We need them to train our workers, to train them how to build batteries, how to work in these factories that are coming from over there and being built in America. That was the intent of having them here in the first place.”

Carter said while he himself hasn’t spoken to representatives from the South Korean government about the detained workers, his office and the state government have been in contact.

Carter says that while he doesn’t yet know if the raid will delay construction on the plant, he is working to ensure it is able to finish on time.

Carter: South Korean nationals ‘weren’t here illegally, but weren’t following the law’

Carter drew a distinction between the detained South Korean nationals and other undocumented immigrants, particularly those who cross the U.S.-Mexico border without any sort of paperwork.

“There were some undocumented immigrants, but the vast majority of the problems were technical in the sense that they had expired passports, expired visas,” Carter said. “They weren’t here illegally, but they weren’t following the law.”

According to ICE’s website, a person is illegally present if they are “in the U.S. for any period of time … without being admitted or paroled, or for any length of time after (their) authorized period of stay expires.”

Carter expressed willingness to help resolve visa and passport issues with workers this time around, but said he felt that foreign workers and companies should take “personal responsibility” for ensuring their paperwork is properly updated in the future.

“At some point, you have to take personal responsibility,” Carter said. “They need to make sure their visa is up-to-date, they need to make sure their passport is up-to-date.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 12:30 PM.