When ICE agents decided to arrest over 300 Korean workers at a Georgia battery plant, a White House-imposed daily immigrant arrest quota was likely on their minds. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a Hyundai-LG battery plant near Savannah created an international incident that called into question future large manufacturing investments in the United States. Many people blamed the event on shortcomings in U.S. visa options or as a necessary outcome when enforcing immigration laws. However, according to an immigration attorney representing several arrested workers, ICE agents chose to arrest the Korean workers to fulfill the quota of 3,000 daily immigrant arrests set by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

An Analysis Of An Immigration Raid

On August 31, 2025, U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Ray issued a warrant to allow ICE to search the Georgia battery plant, a joint venture of Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, naming four Mexican nationals as “targeted persons.” (The Savannah Morning News obtained a copy of the search warrant.) Nothing in the warrant indicated ICE intended to arrest South Korean workers helping to set up a battery plant for electric vehicles slated to employ 2,000 U.S. workers.

On September 4, 2025, approximately 400 state and federal law enforcement personnel raided the battery plant. While they came upon 175 to 200 Latino workers, not all of them working unlawfully, ICE agents also encountered hundreds of South Korean workers.

Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney at Kuck Baxter in Atlanta, represents 11 individuals arrested in the raid and pieced together what happened at the facility. ICE did not bring Korean language interpreters—proof Koreans were not the intended target—but managed to determine that the South Koreans at the facility entered on B-1 visas or the Electronic System for Travel Authorization known as ESTA.

“Not thinking that B-1 and ESTA allow ‘after-sales service and installation,’ which is what the Koreans were doing in setting up the equipment to make the batteries at the facility, ICE agents decided on the spot to arrest all the South Korean workers,” said Kuck in an interview. One of Kuck’s South Korean clients had just arrived the night before and was sitting in a conference room in a business suit, attending a meeting, when arrested by ICE.

On September 5, 2025, ICE sent out a press release and video of the operation stating, “As a result of the initial investigation, 475 individuals were detained.” The press statement also declared, “The individuals arrested during the operation were found to be working illegally, in violation of the terms of their visas and/or statuses. People on short-term or recreational visas are not authorized to work in the U.S.” As Kuck points out, it is not true that all individuals on “short-term visas are not authorized to work in the U.S.”

According to USCIS, “B-1 classification allows, among other business activities: Certain services related to international contracts/sales; and installation/servicing of foreign equipment (not involving local labor for hire and construction).”

The ICE video showed a stream of vehicles pulling up to the facility and featured agents arresting South Koreans and others in body cuffs. The images caused a furor when broadcast in South Korea.

“The arrest of the South Koreans was entirely driven by Stephen Miller’s arrest quota,” said Kuck. “ICE agents screwed up by arresting people who did not abuse the visa, were eligible to engage in the type of work for which they were admitted, but ICE considered it a successful operation because they met Miller’s quota of arresting 3,000 immigrants a day.”

At the end of May 2025, “Stephen Miller, a senior White House official, told Fox News that the White House was looking for ICE to arrest 3,000 people a day, a major increase in enforcement. The agency had arrested more than 66,000 people in the first 100 days of the Trump administration, an average of about 660 arrests a day,” reported the New York Times. In September, Lydia DePillis and Hamed Aleaziz wrote in the New York Times, “Work site enforcement is seen as a way to put large numbers [of arrests] on the board.”

Stephen Miller ordered ICE to arrest 3,000 people a day to achieve one million deportations a year and to go to Home Depot and other businesses rather than focus on criminals. Those orders helped precipitate the ICE arrests in Los Angeles and the protests in the city that followed.

An Immigration Raid Prompts A Reaction From Trump And South Korea

The ICE arrests at the Georgia battery plant resulted in significant economic fallout. According to LG Energy Solution, construction at the plant will remain on hold until the first half of 2026, reported WJCL, delaying by several months when U.S. workers can begin jobs at the facility. The incident also raised questions about future South Korean investments in the United States.

“This issue could have a considerable impact on foreign direct investment in the U.S.,” said South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. “We are urging the U.S. side to normalize the visa process related to investment, whether by securing sufficient visa quotas or by creating a new category of visa.”

The ICE operation created a significant disconnect between the Trump administration’s immigration arrest quotas and Donald Trump’s desire to attract foreign company investment to build U.S.-based manufacturing facilities. “U.S. President Donald Trump offered to allow hundreds of South Korean workers arrested during an immigration raid to stay in the United States, but only one has opted to remain, South Korean officials said,” reported Reuters. “Trump’s overture sought to encourage the workers to stay and train Americans, according to the officials.”

Trump also posted a statement on social media saying he wanted to welcome workers from foreign companies investing in the United States to come for a time on visas to provide expertise and training. Analysts note that such a statement is likely meaningless to companies when Miller runs the Trump administration’s immigration policies, and the focus remains on meeting arrest quotas and blocking high-skilled workers from the United States. Moreover, any company, particularly a foreign company, has an ongoing need for skilled workers, including as part of multinational teams, to develop and update product lines, not only to start operations, notes economist Mark Regets, an NFAP senior fellow.

The more than 300 detainees from South Korea arrived home to significant media attention. “There was widespread anger across the political spectrum in South Korea at the behavior of the U.S. authorities, with one newspaper referring to the workers being treated like ‘prisoners of war’ and another describing Koreans as feeling stabbed in the back by their closest ally,” reported The Guardian.

Even after it became evident that ICE had made a mistake and had caused an international incident, the agency wanted to put the South Koreans in chains when transporting them to the airport to depart the country, according to Kuck and media reports.

U.S. immigration policy can influence business decisions. “The ICE raid in Georgia is going to have a massive economic impact,” said Kuck. “Other attorneys and I are hearing from companies in Asia and Europe who say, ‘Maybe we should hold off on big investments in the U.S. for at least three years.’”