Sept. 18, 2025
The electric vehicle dreamland reeks of corporate treachery, where South Korea's Jaebol giants, those self-crowned kings of global industry, devour each other in a pit patrolled by America's jackbooted immigration enforcers. In Ellabell, Georgia—a nowhere speck in Dixie’s hinterlands—Hyundai and LG Energy Solution’s $4.3 billion joint venture, the HL-GA Battery Company, was supposed to be their shining debut, a battery cell fortress for Hyundai’s Ioniq empire, promising 14,000 jobs by 2027 and funneling billions of LG’s North American cash [ref1]. But on September 4, 2025, that fantasy imploded when 400 ICE stormtroopers, flanked by FBI, DEA, and Georgia’s good-ol’-boy patrol, raided the site, shackling 475 workers—mostly Korean nationals—and hauling them to the Folkston detention abyss [ref2]. The victims? Not Hyundai’s untouchable elites, but LG’s engineers and subcontractors, the wizards installing the rare, specialized battery cell machinery that powers this greenwashed scam [ref3].
Forget the polished lies from Seoul’s English-language propaganda mills, like Hankyoreh’s “progressive” English edition, which coats the outrage in diplomatic drivel, calling it a “bilateral hiccup” to save face for their nationalist overlords [ref4]. Dig into their Korean-language dispatches, and even their far-left reporters can’t mask the Kook chauvinism pulsing beneath: “Hundreds of Koreans arrested in U.S. raid at Hyundai-LG plant,” they lament, framing it as a noble test of Korea-U.S. ties, as if this isn’t the predictable rot of Seoul’s Nazi-grade nationalism pushing its conglomerates to exploit America’s rust belt with vulnerable labor [ref5]. These scribes, deep down, are as infected with flag-waving fever as the Yoon regime’s sycophants, glossing over how LG, the old-school chemistry titan more tied to domestic deals than Yankee ventures, got gang-raped by its “partner” Hyundai and Uncle Sam’s ICE Klan in riot gear. Don’t swallow LG’s PR whimpering about “prioritizing team safety,” as if chaining proud Koreans like antebellum slaves to a sweltering detention van isn’t a holocaust-level atrocity [ref1]. Forty-seven LG employees, plus 250 from their equipment partners—masters of irreplaceable gigafactory tech—were rounded up like livestock over B-1 visa or ESTA waiver technicalities, blurring the line between “business visitor” and “real work” [ref6]. Hyundai? Untouched. Not one direct hire snagged, their mouthpiece Michael Stewart purring about “cooperating with law enforcement” while the raid—sparked by a “months-long probe” fed by resentful locals and ex-employees fed up with safety scandals—conveniently targeted LG’s domain [ref7]. Coincidence? Hardly. Hyundai stabbed LG in the back, likely tipping off ICE about “unlawful practices” among subcontractors to save their own skin, leaving the plant’s early 2026 opening delayed by months, maybe more, because, as CEO José Muñoz whines, “the knowledge is not here” [ref8]. The bitter irony—sharp as battery acid—is Donald Trump, that orange blowhard, crowing about luring “battery experts” to the U.S. mere days before his ICE goons unleashed their raid [ref9]. He poses as the EV messiah, begging for foreign expertise to “train Americans,” yet his minions treat Korean specialists like subhuman contraband, flaunting videos of shackled detainees on buses like MAGA trophy porn [ref10]. LG, never keen on U.S. adventures, is done; they’re pulling workers from four stateside sites—Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, and Georgia—ordering those on waivers to bolt, scaling back like a scorned spouse [ref4]. Why return to a country where your “allies” chain you for doing the dirty work of building machines America can’t replicate? Hyundai, meanwhile, is screwed. Without U.S. sales—their EV lifeline—they’re roadkill, scrambling to source batteries from SK On or elsewhere as their shares wobble and the Jaebol myth frays [ref11]. This raid isn’t just a bust; it’s a fracture, a gaping wound in the vaunted Korea-U.S. alliance that Seoul’s nationalists worship like a deranged fetish. HanKyoReh’s Korean columns seethe: workers decry “degrading treatment” in a private prison gulag where tap water smells like chemical sludge and food is inedible swill, their “voluntary departures” after a week barring reentry like a scarlet letter [ref12]. South Korea’s foreign minister jets to D.C., whining about “human rights violations” in a probe as performative as a K-pop apology video, while the real culprits—Hyundai’s betrayal, LG’s isolation—fester [ref13]. Even the Guardian smells the labor rot: three dead at the site in two years, safety gripes silenced by deportation fears, all buried by Jaebol overlords loyal to profit over people [ref14]. ICE’s Nazi Klan clowns picked the wrong proud Koreans to tangle with. LG can retreat to its domestic stronghold, flip off U.S. tariffs, and let Hyundai dangle in the wind of delayed openings and a shattered partnership. This cold reality hits harder than any Trump tweet. The joint venture? Dead as America’s myth of equitable EV dominance. Good riddance to this rotten charade—two Koreas, north and south, equally rogue, exporting their nationalist venom across the Pacific only to get crushed by the empire they grovel to. The world should ditch the delusion already. References
1. [Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution to Establish Battery Cell Manufacturing Joint Venture in the U.S.](https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/newsroom/detail/hyundai-motor-group-and-lg-energy-solution-to-establish-battery-cell-manufacturing-joint-venture-in-the-u.s.-0000000254)
2. [ICE Raid on Georgia Battery Plant Forces Korean Workers to Stay ...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-17/raid-on-georgia-battery-factory-forces-koreans-into-vacation)
3. [Hyundai battery plant faces at least 2-3 month startup delay ...](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/hyundai-battery-plant-faces-least-2-3-month-startup-delay-following-us-raid-ceo-2025-09-11/)
4. [Hundreds of Koreans arrested in immigration raid at Hyundai-LG ...](https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/1217590.html)
5. [[Column] Georgia ICE raid is a test for Korea-US relations](https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/1219039.html)
6. [What to know about B-1 visas that some detainees from the Hyundai ...](https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/sep/10/south-korea-work-visa-immigration-raid-hyundai-ICE/)
7. [ICE warrant for Hyundai megasite sought four "target persons"](https://www.savannahnow.com/story/news/2025/09/10/ice-warrant-for-hyundai-megasitein-ellabell-georgia-sought-four-target-persons/86043831007/)
8. [Hyundai battery plant faces at least 2-3 month startup delay ...](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/hyundai-battery-plant-faces-least-2-3-month-startup-delay-following-us-raid-ceo-2025-09-11/)
9. [After battery plant raid, Trump proposes allowing experts into US to ...](https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/1217832.html)
10. [Hundreds of Koreans detained by ICE at Georgia Hyundai plant ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXe0zW6NI-o)
11. [Trump's Hyundai Raid Drains U.S. Battery Brains](https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/12/hyundai-raid-immigration-us-battery-manufacturing-south-korea-workforce/)
12. [[Reportage] Koreans detained by ICE await their fate in remote ...](https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/1217601.html)
13. [South Korean Leader Warns of U.S. Investments After Hyundai-LG ...](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/world/asia/south-korea-us-investments-hyundai-raid.html)
14. [Workplace safety issues at Georgia's Hyundai plant may have led to ...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/12/immigration-georgia-hyundai-south-korea)