The South Korean worker informs BBC about panic and confusion during Hyundai Raid

A South Korea worker, who witnessed a huge migration at a car factory in Georgia, told the BBC about panic and confusion with federal agents slipping on the site and arrested hundreds.

The man, who asked not to be identified, was in the factory owned by Hyundai and LG Energy when agents of the ICE and Customs application arrested 475 people, including 300 citizens from South Korea, with the leadership of some in chains.

He said that he was first aware of a raid Thursday morning when he and his colleagues received a flood of phone calls from the company’s heads. “The multiple phone lines were ringing and the message was to close the operations,” he said.

With the spread of news about the raid, the largest of its kind since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the man said that family members with panic tried to contact the workers.

“They were detained and they left all their mobile phones in the office. They were receiving calls, but we were unable to answer because (the office) were closed,” he said.

According to American officials, some workers have tried to escape, including many who jumped to the nearby wastewater pool. They were separated into groups based on nationality and visa status, before being treated and loaded on multiple coaches.

About 400 federal and federal agents met outside the accumulated factory complex of $ 7.6 billion, which is about half an hour from the city of Safana, before entering the site at approximately 10:30 on Thursday.

The complex, which has an area of ​​3000 acres last year, opened the workers there are electric cars. Immigration officials were investigating the alleged illegal employment practices in the electric car battery factory that was built in the complex.

The officials said that the operation eventually became the largest enforcement of immigration in one position in the history of internal security investigations, adding that hundreds of people who were not legally allowed to work in the United States.

BBC Verify reviews clips posted on social media and appears to be photographed inside the battery factory.

One of the video shows men lining up in a convincing man, wearing a jacket with the first letters of internal security investigations – and tells them the millionaire: “We are internal security, we have a note for the entire site. We need to stop immediately, we all need to finish the work at the present time.”

BBC checks the Met The Workr, which is entitled to legally entitled to work in the United States, in Safana, the closest city to the huge car factory.

The man said he was “shocked but not surprised” through the immigration process. He said that the vast majority of detained workers are mechanics who install production lines on the site, and they were working by the contractor.

He also said that a minority of their arrest was sent from the main office in Seoul and was training, which BBC was unable to confirm.

The man said he believed that all workers had some legal right in the United States, but they were in the type of wrong visas or their right to work.

BBC called both Hyundai and LG Energy to comment.

In a joint statement issued after the raid, Hyundai and LG Energy said that she “is fully cooperating with the competent authorities regarding the activity on our construction site. To help their work, we temporarily stopped construction.”

“On our current understanding, none of the detainees are used directly by Hyundai Motor Companyy,” Hyundai also said.

He added that she is “committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations in every market in which we work.”

BBC also verified the US Department of Internal Security (DHS) to comment and for more details about the reason for the workers’ detention and what they were doing in the factory.

On Friday, a day after the raid, the ice agent responsible for the operation, Stephen Sherrank said that all 475 detainees were “illegally” in the United States.

He said that they were workers, “they entered into a variety of different means in the United States, some of them illegally across the border, and some came through a waiver of the visa and banned work, and some had visas and exceeded their visas.”

The raid, which is called the officials “operating the low voltage”, targeted an electric battery factory that was built on the same site as the current Hyundai car factory.

ICE released footage of the raid that turned out to be federal agents who reach armored vehicles and line up workers outside the factory, while showing each other with chains before loading it on the coaches.

Other photos show two men in a river trying to escape, and another man is expelled by agents who talk to him in Spanish.

The worker we spoke to him said that he was sympathetic to those who were seized, but he said that the campaign was not a surprise under the Trump administration. “Their slogan is America first, and if you work in America legally, you will not face a problem,” he said.

The man said that the time and administrative facts that participate in obtaining American visas encouraged foreign companies to cut angles in order to finish projects on time, but they may now need to re -evaluation.

“I mean, after this happens, many companies will think again about investing in the United States because creating a new project may take longer than before,” he said, adding that many of those who have been seized were specialized and that finding local workers to replace them.

When the BBC visited the site during the weekend, there were a few visible signs on a raid on Thursday, although two security teams asked us to move forward while we were filming from the road side.

The Elepheld Electric Car Factory, Georgia is a huge complex that dominates the scene and has been a major source of employment since the announcement of the project in 2022.

The Republican Ruler in Georgia Brian Kemp praised the 7.6 billion dollars complex, describing it as the largest economic development project in the state’s history.

The impact of the project was reflected in the return of the American Korean Association to Greater Savana. “It is a growing society,” said Zhou Dahi, president of the association.

Ms. Dahi, who became an American citizen in the eighties, also known as American Ruby Gold, said that the arrest of ice left people shocked.

It hopes that the raid on its doorstep does not have a broader effect on the Korean -American relations. “It is a shocking thing for me and a well -known global company,” she said.

Additional reports by Aisha Simbahi and Woongbee Lee