At first glance, the arrests made last Thursday at a Hyundai plant in Georgia could create an international incident. President Trump, however, is using it to send a message.

The numbers are startling – 475 people were taken into custody at this one plant. A reported 300 of them are South Koreans. And while some of them came to the United States legally at some point, the problem is that they were never supposed to stay here.

Most of the people detained were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line. None has been charged with any crimes yet, Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said during a news conference Friday, adding that the investigation was ongoing.

He said that some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working.

But how did that many South Koreans end up in the United States, working at one Hyundai plant? Apparently, we can thank… drumroll please… Joe Biden, who struck the deal in the first place!

Yes, back in October 2022, the Biden administration announced that Hyundai would be “investing” in a plant near Savannah, Georgia, with the “promise” that it would “create more than 8,000 jobs” and “boost the entire community” with “good jobs that people can raise a family on.” Now, Biden making the deal for the plant isn’t the problem – but the lack of immigration enforcement definitely is his administration’s fault. According to the Wall Street Journal, while the Korean community there is shocked that this is happening, the American union workers are mad that those “good jobs” went to Korean immigrants after Hyundai got both federal and state taxpayer investment to build that plant.

Barry Zeigler, the business manager of Local Union 188, which represents plumbers, pipe-fitters, welders and air-conditioning technicians, said he was furious after around 65 union members were let go from the battery plant several months ago. They had been hired to install mechanical piping by two separate subcontractors.

“We went out there and did a great job, no fatalities, no injuries, and then we just got replaced by the undocumented workers,” said Zeigler, who has been in the union for 27 years. “It was a kick in the knee.”

Tori Branum, who is running in the May Republican primary for one of Georgia’s U.S. congressional seats, said she alerted the Department of Homeland Security to undocumented workers at the site. It couldn’t be determined what role that might have played in the raid. DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

She thinks the plant isn’t as much of an economic boon for Georgia as the governor has claimed, and that trained, unionized U.S. workers have been passed over in favor of cheaper, undocumented labor. “We gave tax cuts for jobs for Georgians that never happened,” said Branum.

That is a huge problem, and it’s little wonder that these union workers saw it as a bait-and-switch. And the kicker is that this plant isn’t even up and running yet!

Outside Costco, Kim Sun-jin and Sohn Woon-yong said they were saddened by the raid. The couple arrived from Korea two years ago for Sohn to work as an engineer at the Hyundai plant.

“We have a need for Korean people’s labor, and the U.S. doesn’t make it easy,” Sohn said through the translation of his wife.

The 57-year-old said that many of Hyundai’s machines require Koreans to program them, and that work visas can take months to come through. Meanwhile, they are rushing to get the plant finished in time. “We want a strong relationship between Korea and the U.S.,” he said.

This seems like deliberate protectionism by Hyundai itself. Why are Koreans “required” to program the machines? Is it a particular expertise? Is it language based? This plant is being built in the United States, and yet only Koreans can be brought in to do these jobs? Something stinks here.

Regardless of whatever shenanigans Hyundai – and the other counterpart to the plant, LG Energy Solution – has been up to, the South Korean government has interceded to repatriate its citizens.

South Korea announced on Sunday that the roughly 300 of its nationals detained during an immigration raid in Georgia would be released and flown home, as the sudden detention of workers appeared to strain the longstanding diplomatic and economic relationship between the two nations.

Nearly 500 workers, among them at least 300 South Koreans and at least 23 Mexicans, were arrested at the Hyundai-LG battery plant in the city of Ellabell on Thursday.

“As a result of the swift and united response … negotiations for the release of the detained workers have been concluded,” Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff to South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung, told reporters.

“Only administrative procedures remain. Once these are completed, a chartered flight will depart to bring our citizens home,” he said.

LG executive Kim Ki-soo flew to Georgia in an apparent effort to slow the fallout. “The immediate priority now is the swift release of both our LG Energy Solution employees and those of our partner firms,” Ki-soo reportedly said before boarding a plane.

LG Energy Solution said 47 of its workers had been detained, of whom 46 are South Koreans and one Indonesian. Approximately 250 of those detained are thought to be employed by LG Energy Solution’s contractor, the majority of which are South Koreans.

So, Hyundai and LG will likely end up blaming the third party contractor for not properly dealing with the visas and visa waivers, and hope that taking back their citizens with little muss or fuss will hopefully help this all blow over. Not so fast, says President Trump. While he acknowledges the need for specialized labor, Trump has a very simple message for companies getting breaks and incentives to build here: hire American workers.

Donald J. Trump Truth Social Post 07:55 PM EST 09/07/25 pic.twitter.com/QBLyS1WBfC

— Fan Donald J. Trump Posts From Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) September 7, 2025

What is the point of having these international companies build production plants in the United States, taking advantage of federal, state, and local tax incentives, to just have them bring in employees from their native countries to do the work? And when you have contractors who are looking to make a profit off providing the manpower, it is far too easy to cut corners on things like visas and work permits. After all, if the contractor provides the worker, they get a cut of the pay. Multiply that by, say, 250 people, and suddenly there is quite a profit motive to ship workers here to do the work and figure out the paperwork later – or never. If this raid had not happened, would Hyundai or LG have bothered to confront the contractor and have all these people stop working until their paperwork was straightened out? I’m thinking no. It was easy to have the cheap contractor labor and the cultural expectations of Korean workers for much less than the cost of American union labor, and they didn’t ask too many questions.

Now, President Trump does tell companies “to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so.” The next step in that, of course, is to turn to Secretary Rubio at the State Department and ask just how long it does take to get a work visa these days. But it’s clear that when Joe Biden announced this factory was coming, he meant for American workers to be hired. President Trump is simply enforcing that. If Hyundai and LG need native Korean speakers, we apparently have many legal and naturalized residents who would be willing to do that work (the Wall Street Journal interviewed a handful of them). Why not hire them?

While many are speculating that this may “strain” the relationship between the United States and South Korea, they are forgetting something. Asian cultures, as a rule, don’t like to be caught breaking the rules. South Korea is probably looking to save some face after this ICE raid, and if arranging to repatriate their citizens immediately helps normalize relations again, then so much the better. But President Trump is making his intentions clear. These companies who were getting tax breaks to invest in the United States should also be hiring American workers.

Featured image: official White House photo by Daniel Torok from June 21, 2025, cropped, public domain