US immigration officers raid Georgia site where Hyundai makes electric vehicles

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities on Thursday raided the sprawling site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in southeast Georgia, shutting down construction on an adjacent factory being built to produce EV batteries.

The operation targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Hyundai Motor Group began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed that federal authorities were conducting an enforcement operation at the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) site west of Savannah. He said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant but gave few other details.

Georgia State Patrol troopers blocked roads to the Hyundai site. They were dispatched to assist federal authorities in serving “a criminal search warrant,” the Georgia Department of Public Safety said in a statement.

Video posted to social media Thursday showed workers in yellow safety vests lined up as a man wearing a face mask and a tactical vest with the letters HSI, which stands for Homeland Security Investigations, tells them: “We’re Homeland Security. We have a search warrant for the whole site.”