Workplace safety issues at Georgia’s Hyundai plant may have led to Ice raid

Three people have died in two years at the South Korean Hyundai-LG battery plant in Ellabell

A week after a federal immigration raid on a South Korean battery plant under construction in Georgia, concerns over the economic fallout have reverberated between the United States and South Korea. The detention of more than 300 Korean workers at the Hyundai-LG worksite in Ellabell has created uncertainty both about the future of the project and those like it in Georgia, as well as the exact reasons for the aggressive and unusual workplace raid.

One reason that may have driven immigration officials to take actions that threaten an important trade relationship and a politically and economically sensitive development in one of the poorest parts of the US: workplace safety issues that led to three deaths in two years.