Exclusive: More than 300 South Korean workers are challenging the Trump administration over its Georgia immigration raid

More than 300 South Korean workers who were swept up in last year’s immigration raid at a Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in Georgia are challenging the US government, in the first major legal action over one of the largest immigration enforcement operations under President Donald Trump.

Administrative claims on behalf of the workers, a mandatory step before a federal lawsuit, have begun to be filed with nine federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI and the Departments of Justice and Labor, a lawyer representing the claimants told CNN.

Documentation supporting that the first individual claim had been mailed to the agencies was shared with CNN by the lawyer, a Korean attorney practicing in Georgia who has been representing those workers. She asked to be identified only as a Korean lawyer practicing in Georgia, saying it matters to her that the detainees are represented by one of their own. The lawyer said she aims to have all claims filed by end of the year.

The September 4 raid in Ellabell, Georgia, around 25 miles west of Savannah, was the largest single-site operation in the history of Homeland Security Investigations, authorities said at the time. Nearly 500 federal, state and local officers descended on the sprawling plant, detaining 475 workers, mostly South Koreans. Many ranged in age from 20s to 60s, said Kim, one of the lead organizers, whom CNN is identifying only by his surname.

Several workers CNN spoke to allege they were unlawfully arrested and detained without explanation or interpreters, shackled, forced to sign documents they couldn’t understand and held in overcrowded cells. Despite the treatment, some have since returned to the US, saying it’s a necessary part of their job.

According to a search warrant obtained by CNN, the federal immigration operation in Ellabell named just four target individuals – none of them the Korean workers.

Kim provided CNN with his claim, the first to be filed, which argues that he was unlawfully detained and “subjected to demeaning living conditions” while in an ICE facility for seven days, adding the raid resulted in “intentional infliction of emotional distress, humiliation… and lasting psychological trauma.”

The claim seeks damages for confiscated belongings, lost work and psychological harm, and alleges false imprisonment, abuse of process and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawyer told CNN each of the 300 workers had similar claims and declined to specify the amount of damages sought.

The aim of filing claims, the attorney said, is to make the US government acknowledge an “enormous, unjust mistake” and “admit it and apologize.”

“The US government used the false pretext of finding four undocumented people to send hundreds of agents in full armor to storm the worksite of a Korean company that is one of the largest contributors to the American economy,” the attorney told CNN. “Before the whole world, they put engineers who had come lawfully to install equipment in handcuffs and shackles and paraded them like criminals, shaming all Koreans before the world as if Korean companies were invading the US labor market.”

CNN reached out to all nine agencies, but only received responses from DHS and CBP.

In a response to CNN’s inquiry, DHS said ICE “executed a judicial search warrant as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.” CBP referred CNN to a September 2025 release, which said those arrested “were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses.”

All those taken into custody were suspected of living and working illegally in the US, said Steven Schrank, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge, at the time of the detentions. Some had entered illegally, some had overstayed visas, and some had visa waivers that prohibited working, he said.

Four workers among those detained, who asked not to be fully identified for fear of retaliation, told CNN they were working under valid visas and were given no reason for their arrest when they were taken into custody.

“Even after being fully detained, we didn’t know why we were taken, or what crime we’d committed. No one knew anything. Everyone was just bewildered,” said Ryu, a detained worker who CNN is identifying by a pseudonym.

“There was no proper explanation, and yet this happened to us,” Kim said. “If they had at least explained things while proceeding, I might have understood a little.”

When asked whether the workers’ activities violated the terms of their visas, and why some have since re-entered on the same visas to do the same work, CBP told CNN that admissibility decisions are “made on a case-by-case basis” and that “having a non-immigrant visa from a US Embassy or Consulate, or an approved ESTA does not guarantee that you will be admitted into the United States.”

Asked about the raid, DHS pointed CNN to the White House, which later referred CNN to Trump’s Truth Social post last year urging foreign companies to “bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people,” then “phase out” and go home.

The raid has largely been seen as a collision of two Trump priorities: bolstering American manufacturing while enforcing a hardline immigration campaign that has seen mass deportations drain the country’s labor force across manufacturing, agriculture and services.

The 2,900-acre Hyundai Metaplant has two parts: a Hyundai electric-vehicle manufacturing site and an EV battery plant then under construction, a joint venture with LG, where many of the detained Koreans were working.

Kim told CNN he and other workers were held for hours with no Korean interpreters present. They were ordered to sign documents they couldn’t read and later learned were consent-to-arrest forms, workers told CNN. Several signed, believing their agreement would send them home faster.

Kim said they were cuffed at the wrists and ankles and loaded onto buses to a detention center in Folkston, Georgia, where they spent about a week. For the first few days, they were held in a room crammed with up to 80 men, with just a handful of open toilets, in frigid conditions and with only a thin towel to sleep under, before being moved to two-person cells. Some had nothing to sleep under, he said. The food smelled sour and the water tasted off, several said.

Their stories echo those of other detainees across the US alleging packed rooms, inedible food and limited medical care. Such conditions have sparked protests – including last month outside an ICE facility in New Jersey – and several federal lawsuits.

Officers later presented them with voluntary-departure agreements, again with little explanation and without a translator, Kim said. When Kim demanded to know what he had done wrong, an officer said being inside the factory was the violation, warning that contesting it could take months – and, according to his claim, he was told by one agent, “They might torture you.” He signed. So did all the Korean detainees except one, who was married to a US citizen.

ICE did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the alleged threat against Kim.

Ryu said he was among the workers held longest in the facility, those who entered on visa waivers rather than as B-1 visa holders. He told CNN he returned home nearly 10 pounds lighter. Months later, he was back at the same Georgia plant, where he worked as a project manager.

The claims filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act not only paves the way for a federal lawsuit, but can also force the government to provide financial payment and put on the record why the workers were detained, what evidence justified it, and whether officers followed or broke agency policy, said Nora Engstrom, a Stanford law professor and tort expert not involved in the case.

If DHS does not respond to their claims within six months, the workers can take the case to federal court, according to the FTCA. Because the FTCA borrows state law, the workers would have to prove unlawful arrest under Georgia law, she said.

The government, she said, will “almost certainly” argue that the claim is barred by protections for injuries caused by federal employees carrying out “discretionary” duties – though that exception was never meant “to create blanket immunity for federal officers.”

The tort claims act requires each person to exhaust their own remedies before the government – one filing cannot speak for all, said James E. Pfander, a Northwestern law professor who studies the federal courts and is also not part of the case.

In the past, workers bringing similar claims have settled for significant damages. After a 2018 raid at a Tennessee meatpacking plant, detained workers alleging racial profiling, excessive force and unlawful arrest – some under the FTCA – settled with the government for more than $1 million, the workers’ attorneys said.

The FTCA is “the only reliable avenue for money damages,” said Kate Goettel, a former senior legal director for the American Immigration Council. Plaintiffs can also sue individual officers for constitutional violations, but the Supreme Court has increasingly shut that door, especially in immigration cases, said Goettel, who is also not involved in the case.

Choi, a field engineer who has since returned to the same Georgia plant, said the claim is about vindication.

“The thing that angers me the most is that there hasn’t been any kind of apology,” he said. “We were all taken, locked up, and left the US as if we were expelled. The impression we got is: ‘We thought you came illegally, so we just arrested you, but since that’s not the case, we’ll let you go. Come back to work if you want, or don’t.’”

For years, Washington has pressed Seoul to invest on American soil, most recently wielding tariff threats to extract some $350 billion in commitments. The Hyundai-LG battery plant is one of South Korea’s big bets.

The raid initially shut down construction, with the battery plant’s operator, HL-GA Battery Co., telling the Associated Press in November that work had resumed with a mix of new and returning workers – including some of the South Korean nationals detained in September.

The facility is now complete and commercial production began in April, the joint venture HLBMA told CNN, with its first shipment of battery cells delivered in May. The company said it now has “more than 500 employees on site, the majority hired locally.”

For highly technical projects, it may “draw on specialized expertise from outside the country,” but “all workers must fully comply with US laws and regulations,” it added.

Industry officials say US manufacturers often rely on foreign specialists to build and launch such plants, but that the visa system does not easily accommodate the assignments those projects require.

Some of the workers CNN spoke to said they had previously used the same business visas to work at battery plants across the US without trouble, including the B-1 business visitor visa, which permits training and setup, but bars production work or receiving a US paycheck.

Kim said they followed those rules while working in Ellabell, were paid in South Korean currency and provided “a great deal of training” to American workers, a process that takes time.

“Our work is highly specialized. No matter how much you provide manuals or training, in certain areas they can’t reach the same level of proficiency that we have,” he said.

In a statement to CNN, LG Energy Solution said it “prioritize(s) strict compliance” and sends experts only temporarily until plants can run on their own.

ICE and South Korea’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to CNN’s questions about the legal basis for the raid, the detention conditions, or the workers’ return on the same visas.

Since the raid, many have returned to work at US battery plants doing similar jobs, often on the same visas, while carrying the fear of being swept up again by immigration agents, the workers told CNN.

Jung, a software engineer, flew to Cleveland in June for equipment work and stayed through August. It is the only trade he has ever known, and his only way to make a living. “Even though I’m still scared,” he said, “I have no choice but to go.”

Kim later installed and repaired lithium-ion battery equipment in Lansing, Michigan, on the same B-1 visa he held the morning agents stormed the Georgia plant. He has since returned to South Korea.

Workers returning to the US carry a company-issued card listing their visa, employer and job, “in case immigration enforcement comes again,” Kim said – a new procedure since the Georgia raid.

“Before, my image of the US was that it’s a powerful country, a wealthy country, an ally,” Kim said. “So I didn’t really feel anxious.” That image, he said, “has been greatly shattered.”

“It’s not really that fair, or the land of freedom that we generally think of.”