On Thursday, ICE announced that it had detained over 450 workers at a massive 3,000-acre electric vehicle battery plant outside of Savannah, Georgia. The plant is owned by a joint venture of LG Energy Solution and Hyundai Motor Group, two South Korean companies.
Hundreds of federal vehicles and Humvees were spotted parked outside of the plant as immigrants were marched out, according to images broadcast by local Savannah TV station WSAV.
Federal authorities carried out the raid with the assistance of the Georgia State Patrol. The raid is, so far, the largest ICE raid of the second term of the Trump Administration.
In 2019, during the Trump Administration’s first term, ICE arrested 680 people in a raid on a meatpacking plant in Mississippi (See Payday’s 2019 investigation into how ICE under Trump raided the Mississippi plant after immigrant workers reached a $3.75 million sexual harassment settlement)
Since construction began on the site in 2022, three workers, including two immigrant construction workers, have been killed on the job. Immigration activists say that the raid is only likely to prevent immigrant workers from speaking out about workplace problems throughout the country.
Workers at the Hyundai construction site have repeatedly spoken out about safety issues at the plant, both to government regulators and the press.
In 2023, immigrant worker Victor Gamboa was killed after he fell 60 feet to his death. Afterwards, the Biden Administration opened 13 separate investigations into the plant.
In November of 2023, OSHA cited Hyundai subcontractor Eastern Constructors for failing “to ensure workers were provided fall arrest equipment that was appropriate for the work conditions and capable of resisting sharp edges, which exposed employees to fall hazards,” according to publicly available documents.
Following the Biden Administration’s investigation of Gamboa’s death, no deaths occurred at the plant. However, since the Trump Administration took over and began cutting back on federal workplace safety enforcement, two workers have died at the plant in just two months.
On March 24th, Sunbok You, a 67-year-old construction worker, was killed when he was dragged by a forklift, and his body was severed in half, according to local station WTOC, which obtained footage of his death scene.
On May 21st, 27-year-old Allen Kowalski, an employee of a subcontractor, was killed when a load fell off a forklift, according to local station WSAV.
“Based on what’s happened, there is a culture change that needs to occur on the project, and it doesn’t appear that it’s occurring,” a top Clinton-era OSHA official, James Stanley, the president of FDR Safety Solutions, told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution in July.
Despite well-publicized warnings in various local Georgia media outlets like the Current and Georgia Public Broadcasting about safety issues at the plant, the Trump Administration has so far failed to take action on the workplace deaths at the plant. Instead, the Trump Administration decided to raid the plant in a massive military fashion.
“When multiple workers have died during the construction of this very plant, the only federal action that could possibly be justified is to strengthen enforcement of occupational safety and health protections and other labor rights—a far cry from ICE raids,” said Georgia AFL-CIO President Yvonne Brooks in a statement sent to Payday Report
Workplace safety advocates say that ICE raids often deter immigrant construction workers from speaking up, leading to more workplace accidents. On Thursday night, the Georgia AFL-CIO affirmed its commitment to organize and protect workers across the state.
“The Georgia AFL-CIO stands with every worker who has been targeted by these politically motivated raids,” said Brooks. “Our movement will do everything we can to support all working families. That’s what solidarity looks like, and it cannot be broken. Workers in our state will not be pitted against each other.”
Payday is updating this story as it develops. Please send any tips to melk@paydayreport.com
