Legal workers got caught up in ICE's biggest raid. Korean Americans haven't forgotten.

POOLER, GA – Daniel Lee's fried chicken, with its spicy-sweet glaze, regularly drew hungry Korean workers from a nearby Hyundai plant into his restaurant, 92 Chicken.

That was, until a massive immigration raid at the battery plant two months ago left Lee stunned and his business reeling. Federal agents handcuffed, chained and detained more than 300 Korean workers in an operation President Donald Trump later said he fully opposed.

The workers were flown home after a few days in immigration detention, but the effects of the raid continue to ripple out – from the tables at Lee's restaurant, to Hyundai headquarters in Seoul, to Trump's White House.

The high-profile raid of a major global Fortune 500 company that had been aggressively recruited to Georgia infuriated many Korean Americans. According to Pew Research, some 1.8 million people in the United States trace their roots to South Korea, a nation that had long thought of itself as America's equal.

And it raised existential questions for Lee's business and for Korean Americans nationwide who didn't imagine that people here lawfully would be targeted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or that the Trump administration would pick a fight with a country that had invested billions in the U.S. economy.

Born in Philadelphia to Korean parents, Lee himself had worked 15 years for Hyundai before he launched his eatery, one of a dozen businesses in this Savannah suburb that opened to serve the Koreans and Korean Americans who came to work at the plant.

"I thought America was like my mother country, and Korea was like my father country," Lee said. "So it's like my parents are fighting."

Biggest raid in ICE history

A majority of the 300 Korean workers were present legally, on B-1 visas or under a visa waiver, which allowed them to perform equipment installation and to train American workers, said Charles Kuck, an Atlanta-based immigration attorney who represented a dozen of the workers.

However, some workers had worried their visas might not allow them to do the jobs they were assigned, given the increased enforcement under Trump, according to the Reuters news agency.

ICE raided the plant on a warrant to target four Hispanic workers they suspected might be in the United States illegally. They detained 475 people there on Sept 4, in what officials initially touted as the largest single-site raid in ICE history.

ICE had a judge's permission to search the plant for records related to employing or harboring undocumented immigrants, according to the warrant obtained by USA TODAY. Prosecutors have yet to bring criminal charges in connection with the raid, according to a search of federal court records.

"ICE knew they screwed up," Kuck said. "Within 24 hours, ICE stopped speaking to the press about the biggest raid in its history. It definitely is still roiling the companies because I've been told none of [the workers] want to come back."

The Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America is the company's first mass-production plant for electric vehicles and is slated to produce half a million vehicles annually. It's an $8 billion campus that is expected to generate 8,500 jobs in the region.

The raid specifically hit a Hyundai-LG Energy Solutions partnership: a plant under construction to make EV batteries for the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 electric SUVs.

That plant was scheduled to open by early 2026, but the arrests of hundreds of workers will delay its opening at least two to three months, Hyundai Chief Executive José Muñoz has said.

In late October, Trump traveled to Asia, looking to negotiate new trade deals and mend fences with the Koreans. Speaking from Air Force One en route, Trump said he was "very much opposed" to the Hyundai raid.

"Some of these factories make very, very complex, very highly sophisticated equipment," he told reporters. "They've got to bring people in with them for a period of time."

After the raid, Trump offered to let the workers remain in the United States, but only one accepted.

A longtime strategic relationship

Trump has good reason to want to smooth over relations with South Korea. Decades of business and cultural ties are at stake, along with billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of jobs.

Korea ranks as the United States' eighth-largest trading partner, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

"South Korea has been a rising global power over the last two or three decades," said Chris Suh, associate professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta. "Korean Americans feel that Korea finally made it."

Seoul-based Hyundai was eager to show its commitment to the United States despite the raid.

Hyundai held its annual investor conference outside of Korea for the first time ever this year, opting for New York.

Muñoz, the CEO, opened Hyundai's September investor day with a message of "sincere empathy" for the workers who were detained. He underscored the company's investments and urged the United States and Korea to "work on mutually beneficial solutions" for foreign workers.

"Hyundai has been part of the fabric of the U.S. for nearly 40 years and has operated in Georgia for more than 15 years," he told investors, adding that the new battery plant "is helping transform the region with long-term economic benefits for thousands of families."

That's, in part, why the questioning and arrest of hundreds of workers who looked Asian dismayed many Korean Americans, said Mark Keam, president of the Korean American Institute.

"To say there is a sense of betrayal is an understatement," he said.

Keam, a naturalized U.S. citizen, has lived in the United States for 45 years, served as an elected state representative in Virginia and worked for the Biden and Clinton administrations. Korean Americans, like other Asian Americans, often deal with what he calls "perpetual foreigner syndrome" – the creeping feeling that, no matter their citizenship or background, they'll always be perceived by other Americans as foreign.

The raid "has become the trigger that raised concerns that were just below the surface," said Keam, who travels the country in his role and recently visited Seattle, Chicago and New York City. "In every one of those places, when I was with Korean American people, it was the biggest topic that comes up."

Business is 'not recovering at all'

Tables at Lee's 92 Chicken franchise are emptier than they were before the raid. Lee estimates he lost a fifth of his business in its wake.

"It dropped dramatically," Lee said. "It's not recovering at all."

The city of Pooler lies between artsy Savannah and rural Ellabell, where Hyundai built its Metaplant campus. The fast-growing suburb sprawls over roughly 30 square miles, bursting with traffic and development.

"To be in the midst of Pooler to see all this growth, I was the only Korean woman and now I go to Costco and Publix and I hear my own language," said Kay Heritage, a longtime Korean American resident and owner of Big Bon Bodega restaurant in Pooler, which, among other things, serves a pizza topped with pickled Korean kimchi.

As Koreans and Korean Americans flocked to the suburb, new restaurants blossomed to serve them, as did other businesses from estheticians and physical therapists to grocers and realtors, she said.

The community's loss of so many Koreans at once has hit hard.

"Especially the Korean restaurants felt the impact," she said.

The Hyundai campus promised a continuous flow of people and capital from Korea, said Suh, the professor at Emory.

"If these folks stop coming or are hesitant to come, that means less business, fewer people to participate in the Korean American community, fewer people going to church, buying food," he said. "I think it's going to take a while for people to feel the same way they did before the raid."

In the kitchen of his restaurant, Lee makes Korean-style fried chicken by battering thighs and drumsticks, then brushing on a soy-garlic, sweet chili, or spicy gochujang sauce, topped with green onions. He leaves plastic gloves on the tables for diners who don't want to get messy.

Now Lee is revamping his menu, looking to Americanize his fried chicken to mimic the Southern recipe, he said.

"Local people like it more, a little more saltier, and a little more sweeter," Lee said. "We're gonna have to make things a little less spicy on the menu."

He isn't angry about the raid, he said, but he is resolved.

"I can't do anything [about] the decision makers," he said. "I've got to diversify my menus."

Lauren Villagran covers immigration for USA TODAY and can be reached at [email protected].

Savannah Morning News reporters Destini Ambus and Jillian Magtoto reported from Pooler, Georgia.

Contributed: Trevor Hughes