Families in crisis after massive immigration raid at Hyundai plant in Georgia

Source: ABC News/AP

September 13, 2025, 7:47 AM


Ever since a massive immigration raid on a Hyundai manufacturing site swept up nearly 500 workers in southeast Georgia, Rosie Harrison said her organization’s phones have been ringing nonstop with panicked families in need of help. “We have individuals returning calls every day, but the list doesn’t end,” Harrison said. She runs an apolitical non-profit called Grow Initiative that connects low-income families — immigrant and non-immigrant alike — with food, housing and educational resources. Since the raid, Harrison said, “families are experiencing a new level of crisis.”

A majority of the 475 people who were detained in the workplace raid — which U.S. officials have called the largest in two decades — were Korean and have returned to South Korea. But lawyers and social workers say many of the non-Korean immigrants ensnared in the crackdown remain in legal limbo or are otherwise unaccounted for.

As the raid began the morning of Sept. 4, workers almost immediately started calling Migrant Equity Southeast, a local nonprofit that connects immigrants with legal and financial resources. The small organization of approximately 15 employees fielded calls regarding people from Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Venezuela, spokesperson Vanessa Contreras said.

Throughout the day, people described federal agents taking cellphones from workers and putting them in long lines, Contreras said. Some workers hid for hours to avoid capture, in air ducts or remote areas of the sprawling property. The Department of Justice said some hid in a nearby sewage pond.

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/families-crisis-after-massive-immigration-raid-hyundai-plant-125536898