Hyundai Motor Company announced that the opening of its new factory in Georgia will face a delay of at least two months following a significant raid that took place last week. That raid, which officials said was the largest in U.S. history, resulted in the arrest of 475 people. Of those, approximately 300 were South Korean technical laborers. The whole unfortunate affair has aroused huge domestic protests in South Korea and Testy Trump-esque tensions between the USA and South Korea.
The raid targeted just one site that had been earmarked for a much larger complex. At full build-out, this commercial development is projected to create some 8,500 jobs across Georgia. As U.S. immigration officials later confirmed, the workers detained during the raids were not authorized to work in the U.S. At the same time, South Korean officials insisted that it is typical practice for Korean firms to export workers abroad to set up factories.
The South Korean government disclosed that most of the arrested laborers had visited the United States on a temporary visa. Their objectives were to help lay the groundwork for establishing factory operations. According to Hyundai’s Chief Operating Officer, José Muñoz, this unexpected turn of events will result in “a minimum two to three months delay [in opening the factory] because now all these people want to get back.”
By the end of next Friday, millions more American workers will be coming home. Hyundai is now tasked with backfilling those lost jobs that they, themselves, lured away. Even the South Korean president Kim Boo-kyum took distress over this advancement. Without a clear path forward, Hawley said banning temporary worker arrangements would make building new factories in the U.S. even more difficult.
“More difficult… making companies question whether it’s worth doing at all.” – South Korea’s president
The raid has raised questions regarding the viability of the recent trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea. The South Korean president warned that this incident could discourage foreign investment into the United States, potentially impacting economic relations between the two nations.
None of the people arrested in the raid were directly hired by Hyundai. Their absence looms so large it could sink the factory’s timeline entirely. Aside from the publicity optics, Hyundai is clearly working the situation. The organization is looking out for the uninterrupted flow of its operations.