A deal was reached between South Korea and the United States to release more than 300 workers detained in an immigration enforcement raid at a massive Hyundai plant in Georgia, the South Korean government announced Sunday. 

During the raid on Thursday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 475 immigrants suspected of living and working in the U.S. illegally, authorities said at the time. According to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun, more than 300 of the detained workers were South Korean nationals.

South Korea’s presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said that negotiations had been finalized on the workers’ releases, and they would be returned to South Korea as soon as the remaining administrative steps are completed. South Korea plans to send a charter plane for them, he said.

CBS News has reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Hyundai for additional comment on the deal.

Hundreds of U.S. federal agents raided Hyundai’s sprawling manufacturing site in southern Georgia last week, targeting a facility where the Korean automaker makes electric vehicles. 

Steven Schrank, the special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Georgia and Alabama, told reporters at a Friday news conference that a majority of the people detained were Korean nationals, but he didn’t know exactly how many. They worked for different companies, including subcontractors, Schrank said.

Immigration Raid Hyundai Plant

This image from video provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via DVIDS shows a person being handcuffed at the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Ellabell, Ga.

Corey Bullard/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP

The operation was the latest in a long line of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But the one on Thursday is especially distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site that state officials have long called Georgia’s largest economic development project. 

Schrank said it was conducted as part of a month-long investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other federal crimes. He described the raid as the largest enforcement operation at a single site in the history of Homeland Security Investigations, which is a unit within ICE.

Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside. Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waist.

Immigration Raid Hyundai Plant

This image from video provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via DVIDS shows manufacturing plant employees waiting to have their legs shackled at the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Ellabell, Ga.

Corey Bullard/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP

Agents focused their operation on a plant that is still under construction, at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power electric vehicles.

Most of the people detained were taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Georgia, near the Florida state line. None has been charged with any crimes yet, Schrank said Friday, but he added that the investigation was ongoing.

The South Korean government, a close U.S. ally, expressed “concern and regret” over the raid targeting its citizens and sent diplomats to the site.

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