S. Korean workers challenge US govt over 2025 raid

South Korean workers detained in a massive US immigration raid at a Georgia battery plant construction site last year have launched legal action against the United States government.

A lawyer representing a group of more than 300 South Korean workers said they have filed administrative claims against nine federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the FBI, CNN reported on Tuesday.

On Sept 4, 2025, amid the US administration's escalating crackdown on immigrants, 475 people, including about 300 South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of a Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution joint battery plant.

It was one of the largest single-worksite immigration enforcement operations in the history of the Department of Homeland Security and sparked shock and concerns in South Korea after released footage showed workers being put in handcuffs and shackles by heavily armed agents.

While many workers have returned to US job sites on similar visas, they now carry company-issued verification cards and face lingering anxiety over potential sweeps.

The claims said the workers were unlawfully detained during last year's raid.

Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, filing administrative claims is a mandatory step in the US before a federal lawsuit.

Nora Freeman Engstrom, a professor of Stanford Law School and tort expert not involved in the case, told CNN that the claims filed under the act pave the way for a federal lawsuit. The move will also force the US government to provide financial payment and explain on record why the workers were detained, what evidence justified it, and whether officers followed or broke agency policy.

"We must receive official apologies from the US government for the illegally trampled rights of (the South Korean people)," Lee Jeong-hwa, an attorney at the Atlanta-based June Lee Law Group representing the workers, told South Korean news website The Chosun Daily.

Keeping distance

Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution appear to be distancing themselves from the workers' legal action, according to The Korea Times.

An LG Energy Solution official said the company was unaware of the legal action until media reports emerged, and would not get involved since the claims are based on individual workers' decisions.

A Hyundai Motor Group official said none of its own employees were detained at the time, and it is not involved in legal action taken individually by workers from partner companies or those dispatched to the site.

Earlier this month, five immigration rights groups, including the Migrant Equity Southeast, Demo Lab South, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, held a news conference in Georgia.

According to a release from the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, a complaint was also filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act for one worker — Alfredo Fajardo Melgarejo, who was eventually deported about eight months after the raid — to seek justice for his "wrongful arrest" and "mistreatment" by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"We will continue to hold the government accountable for its actions during the raid and advocate for ICE to be abolished," the group said.

In 2023, Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution announced a plan to jointly build a $4.3 billion electric vehicle battery cell manufacturing plant in Georgia. The plant will have an annual capacity of 30 gigawatt-hours, enough to supply about 300,000 electric vehicles.

Zhang Hui in Hong Kong contributed to this story.