President Donald Trump revealed he was “very much opposed” to the recent, massive ICE raid at the Hyundai EV battery factory in Georgia, essentially throwing his own immigration agency under the bus for an operation that led to the arrest and deportation of hundreds of workers, mostly South Korean nationals.
This was no small-time operation, either; ICE officials rounded up 475 workers in what became the department’s largest-ever single-site enforcement action. The entire thing caused an immediate international firestorm, especially since video footage released by authorities showed some of these workers being shackled with chains around their hands, ankles, and wrists. Honestly, it’s an awful look that put a huge strain on the U.S.’ relationship with South Korea, which is an important ally and a huge foreign investor in the U.S. per Fox.
When you hear the president’s justification, though, you can almost see the gears turning on his shifting priorities. He told reporters that he understood why ICE did it, since the workers were here illegally, but he still opposed the action, stating, “You know how I feel, I was very much opposed.” He said you “can’t expect them to make unbelievably complex chips and computers and other things and pick people off the unemployment line that haven’t worked in five years.”
Trump can’t even defend his own awful orders
This raid isn’t just a political headache; it’s a massive practical problem, too. Hyundai’s CEO, José Muñoz, confirmed that the new EV battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia, which is one of the largest economic development projects the state has ever seen, will now face a “minimum two to three months delay” in startup. The reason for the massive setback is that all those detained people were the experts the plant needed. Apparently, many of the South Korean nationals arrested were engineers, equipment installers, and other specialists necessary for the highly complex job of getting the facility online.
As one attorney for some of the detainees put it, “The vast majority of the individuals… should never have been detained“. It’s a classic case of the government encouraging billions in foreign investment on one hand and then having a different branch crack down hard on the skilled workers required to execute that investment on the other hand.
Senator Lindsey Graham compared Trump’s potential strikes on Venezuela and Colombia to President George H. W. Bush’s 1989 operation that removed Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, saying both aim to fight narco-terrorism.
— OSINT report(@Tourosenta14746) October 27, 2025
“They’ll teach our people how to do it,” he stated. “Our people will be just as good as they are within a period of time and it’ll be a phase out, but we want them to bring in experts and that’s the way it is.”
The crackdown itself has sent a chilling message across the industry, with some companies “totally freaked out” by the whole affair. When you watch your foreign workers getting shackled and deported, you can’t help but question whether setting up a plant in the U.S. is worth the potential trouble.
