Federal agents last week carried out the largest single-site immigration raid in Homeland Security’s history at LG Energy Solution’s joint battery facility with Hyundai Motor in Georgia, detaining 475 workers — more than 300 of them South Korean nationals.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 4 raid, Korean employees at the company’s Spring Hill, Tenn. operation left the U.S., citing growing concerns over visa status and legal uncertainty, according to a Reuters report.
The report comes after a July announcement that LG Energy Solutions and GM announced the latest stepping-stone of its $2.3 billion joint venture to produce low-cost battery cells known as lithium iron phosphate (LFP) at its Spring Hill production site.
Many of the Georgia detainees held Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa waivers or B-1 temporary business traveler visas, according to Reuters. Those documents do not allow non-citizens to work in the U.S. in construction or equipment installation.
That operation has impacted auto manufacturing operations in Tennessee. Located on the General Motors’ Spring Hill production site, Ultium Cells — a joint venture between the country’s largest automaker and LG Energy Solutions — has felt the ripple effect.
Korean equipment engineers are often sent to the U.S. to “help set up and fine-tune production equipment” and train local employees, the unnamed source told Reuters. They often spend months at the company’s U.S. factories helping ramp up production, according to the source.
LG Energy Solutions has asked its subcontractors to craft contingency plans to hire local workers as the move threatens to slow its U.S. investment plan.
Ultium Cells faces an exodus of its Korean workforce as GM and other second-tier suppliers are already laying off employees amid a shifting economic outlook for the auto industry.
Last week, the General Motors Spring Hill plant announced the company would be furloughing roughly half of its 1,400 shift workers as it rolls back production of its electric vehicles.
The plant will pause production for more than a month of downtime through the end of the year — during the week of Oct. 6, Thanksgiving and all of December.
Reuters contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: South Korean factory workers flee Spring Hill following Hyundai raid