This image of the video provided by American immigration and the application of customs via DVIDs shows that employees of the manufacturing plant are escorted outside the Hyundai group of electric vehicles, Thursday, September 4, 2025, in Ellabelll, GA.
Corey Bullard / US Immigration and Customs Shall via AP
Immigration raid last week on a Hyundai The installation in Georgia could express trouble for other companies while President Donald Trump represses illegal immigration on a larger scale.
THE According to special agent Steven Steven Schrank, has marked the largest operation to apply a single site in the history of the Department of Internal Security. Nearly 500 workers, many of whom were South Korean nationals, were detained at the factory.
The RAID was carried out on a site belonging to South Korean companies Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, which jointly build a battery manufacturing plant. The DHS said that workers arrested were employed by entrepreneurs or subcontractors, and Hyundai said that none of the prisoners were direct automotive employees. The American authorities, who had a search warrant, said that arrested workers worked or lived illegally in the country.
The Tsar on the border of the White House Tom Homan said on Sunday that the raid was only the start of what will come from the administration.
“We are going to do more operations in the application of the site,” he said. “These companies that hire illegal extraterrestrials, they have undergone their competition which pays the wages of American citizens.”
Certain reactions to the repercussions of the raid may already be in motion.
Hyundai told NBC News on Monday morning that most of its business trips to the United States remained in place, but that some trips were subject to an internal examination.
Tami Overby, partner of DGA Group Government Relations, said that most of the companies she spoke was waiting to see what could be the implications of last week’s raid. She also said that she believed that Trump could understand that they are faced with challenges with labor shortages and visa limitations and soon offer a certain relief.
Foreign companies can also reassess their American investments, according to Dean Baker, principal economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Trump, on the other hand, tried to increase American investments with his aggressive pricing policies.
“I think what is clear is that it shows the message that, obviously, Hyundai would take away – and all foreign investors – that their investment here is very unsure, to say it as simply as possible,” he told CNBC. “So I think it must be a very big warning sign for any business that seeks to invest in the United States”
Baker said he thought that companies would now try to replace as much their workforce as possible with American citizens, although this could be a major challenge depending on the skills of people, labor shortages and other challenges.
For other foreign companies with American operations, Baker has said that they will probably not seek to extend their footprint in the country so as not to put themselves in danger, although they do not stop completely. But he said it could raise red flags with the administration, because Trump could start to “pointing the finger” companies if foreign investment falls.
The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump on Tuesday was grateful to foreign companies in the United States, but that he wanted them to hire American citizens.
“He understands that these companies want to bring their highly skilled and trained workers with them, especially when they create very nicious products like fleas, or in this case, in this case, in Georgia, like batteries,” said Leavitt. “But the president also expects these foreign companies to hire American workers and for these foreign workers and the American workers they work together to train and teach each other.”
‘A call of alarm clock’
The node of the problem was born from many automotive companies that set up American facilities to imitate those who are already working well in their country of origin, said the partner and general manager of Alixpartners, Arun Kumar, who focuses on automotive and industrial practice.
Kumar told CNBC that foreign companies are often counting on workers on their own at their American sites because these workers are already specially trained-which was probably the case in the installation of Hyundai, which was focused on more recent electric vehicle technology, he added.
“I think the question to be asked is what is the involvement from a point of view of the level supplier a car manufacturer,” he said. “I think that if these approaches do not change, it could have huge implications, especially when you stop production.”
Kumar said it was time for automotive companies to rethink their textbooks, because often, scenario planning occurs far too late. Instead, he said foreign companies are probably now focusing on the integration of more American workers in their workforce.
However, the Hyundai Raid marks a significant change for industry, he said.
“I think that what is said, the rest of the automotive industry is:” Hey, start to look at your operations to ensure that you respect the legal rules and laws of this country “,” said Kumar, noting that the industry as a whole undergoes inspections and re -evaluations all the time.
He called the raid of last week “an awakening call” for many automotive companies, which generally enter one of the two categories: companies that did not realize that they had problems, or those that recognized the problems but pushed them further on the road.
And the email of the administration only put more spotlights on the type of operational companies will want to execute.
“I think the ways in which the automotive industry is working will change due to this potential problem that has come from an immigration application point of view,” said Kumar. “But it is solved, however, there is no doubt.”
Susan Helper, professor of economics at the Western University box, said that the RAID will have a “scary effect” on foreign investments and the colors of how the Trump administration is approaching its problem solving.
With “not many bonuses granted to a coherent policy”, Helper said that the actions of the administration last week send a clear message to foreign companies to hire and train more American workers.
The Hyundai raid occurred a few days after Trump and South Korean president Lee Jae Myung held a summit where South Korean companies are committed to $ 150 billion in American investments.
The South Korean government said on Friday that it had transmitted its “concern and regret” to the United States Embassy, but Trump later declared that the RAID had not written relations between the two countries. The South Korean government said that it tried to return its nationals on the return flights to the country.
“I think there is the bipartite desire to rebuild manufacturing in the United States, and recognition that we have let our expertise go so far that a lot of cutting-edge knowledge is, in fact, abroad, and we therefore need foreign investments to come here,” said Helper. “But it seems that we would like foreign investment to obey our rules.”