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.
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)
