By Bloomberg

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A massive immigration raid on a battery plant in the US state of Georgia earlier this month continues to reverberate across the region with workers staying home and delays mounting.
Ken Shim, president of Woowon Technology, said he had to provide paid time off to ease the stress of South Korean engineers installing equipment at a cell plant being built by Hyundai Motor and South Korea’s SK On near Cartersville, Georgia.
Shim, an American citizen who has lived in the United States for more than a decade, stressed that his employees are all working legally – they have visas that allow for limited business activity such as training local hires and setting up equipment.
But Hyundai and LG Energy Solution also thought workers and subcontractors at their plant outside the city of Savannah on similar visas were complying with the law. Yet on September 4, they were shackled and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“They stopped going to work. Everybody right now is staying in their hotels or houses,” Shim said in an interview. “I told my people – don’t worry about it, take it as a one-week holiday. Go shopping, you guys work hard.”
SK has advised some visa holders to avoid coming to US work sites until there is more clarity around their legal status, Shim said. His workers in Georgia are hunkered down, citing rumours of immigration agents questioning people at Walmart and H Mart, a grocery chain that specialises in Asian foods. He understood their worries and advised everyone to carry their visa and passport documents with them.
SK did not respond to a request for comment. The White House and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

South Korean battery manufacturers have invested billions in the US over the past few years as the electric vehicle industry has ramped up production in anticipation of a boom in demand. That business plan is being tested now as EV sales have lost steam and after Republicans eliminated consumer tax credits that helped stimulate EV demand.
The immigration uncertainty has added to stress on their businesses. Worker unease at the Hyundai-SK plant in Cartersville is emblematic of what is happening at other factory floors across the country. Hyundai has acknowledged the raid set back construction at its site near Savannah by at least several months due to workers’ fears of being detained.
It is no small problem for the industry. South Korean firms are building or have plans to build some 22 plants in the US, projects the companies say hinge on moving trained engineers quickly across international borders – a practice being undermined by heightened immigration scrutiny.
There are at least four additional major EV battery plants actively under construction in the US that are seen as vulnerable to similar raids because they still require the services of skilled technicians on temporary visas.
The saga began when federal authorities swooped in at the Hyundai-LG plant outside Savannah on September 4, detaining about 475 workers – more than 300 of them South Koreans – amid allegations that at least some were working in the US illegally. After diplomatic pressure, a group of the South Koreans who had been detained was flown back home several days later.

Following the raid, President Donald Trump said foreign companies investing in the US need to respect immigration laws – one of his signature priorities – but he also acknowledged that some specialised foreign workers are needed to train Americans in jobs where they are developing complex products and machines.
The situation has pinned Trump between duelling priorities – an immigration crackdown and a desire for more foreign investment, which brings with it a demand for work visas. It also risks fuelling tensions between the US and South Korea; the two countries have reached a deal to curb tariffs and set up a South Korean-financed investment fund, but it has not been signed.
LG, which is also building a battery plant in Ohio as part of a joint venture with Honda Motor, said construction at its other US plants is going forward, albeit without the help of foreign battery engineers whose visa status is in limbo.
“This is mostly manageable and something that should not interrupt our operations,” Bob Lee, president of North America for LG, said at a conference in Detroit on Tuesday. “We have to try to find a plan that works regardless of various different scenarios, so that’s what we’re doing.”
Shim said that battery factories that are already up and running, like the SK plant in Commerce, Georgia, have been less affected by visa confusion because most of the local workforce, largely citizens and green card holders, have already been trained on how to monitor the complex battery manufacturing machines. But new plants that have not started production are facing delays because locals have not been fully trained yet.
“We couldn’t finish all the training, and still the machine set-up and teaching to optimise for the production was not completed yet,” he said. “They could do some, but not really what they’re supposed to do at this stage.”

Woowon Technology, whose parent company is based in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, produces, installs and services equipment for assembling battery cells. It also invested in a 10,000 square foot workshop in Kentucky, near a Ford Motor-SK battery joint venture, that maintains blades to cut battery electrodes.
In a statement, the company said it is worried about workers being detained even though it follows immigration law. “If such uncertainty continues, it could negatively affect Korean companies’ willingness to invest in and cooperate with US manufacturing,” the statement said.
Shim said when he first heard about the raid at the Hyundai-LG plant, it sounded like the result of a misunderstanding and he assumed it would quickly be cleared up.
“The first week, we thought, ‘This is happening, but everything will be OK, this is America, we are all legal,’” Shim said. “But maybe now, maybe this is not OK.”
“After that instant, the kind of feeling we are having here in the US is completely different,” he said.