South Korea and US reach deal for release of hundreds of workers detained during Hyundai plant raid in Georgia

SEOUL, South Korea — More than 300 South Korean workers detained following a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia will be released and brought home, the South Korean government announced Sunday.

Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said that South Korea and the U.S. had finalized negotiations on the workers’ release.

He said South Korea plans to send a charter plane to bring the workers home as soon as remaining administrative steps are completed.

U.S. immigration authorities said Friday they detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals, when hundreds of federal agents raided Hyundai’s sprawling manufacturing site in Georgia where the Korean automaker Hyundai makes electric vehicles.

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun later said that more than 300 South Koreans were among the detained.

The operation was the latest in a long line of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But the one on Thursday is especially distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site state officials have long called Georgia’s largest economic development project.

Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside.

Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waist.

Agents focused their operation on a plant that is still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power EVs.

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 is ongoing.

The South Korean government, a close U.S. ally, expressed “concern and regret” over the raid targeting its citizens and sent diplomats to the site.