‘We’ve got some work to do’: JDA leader discusses reconciling with South Korea following Hyundai megasite raid

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Trip Tollison, the CEO of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, says he found out about ICE’s raid of the Hyundai megasite at the same time everyone else did: when it made the news.

He was out of the state when it happened, and says he was puzzled by the situation.

What puzzled him even more was the search warrant that federal agents entered the site with. The warrant said Homeland Security was looking for four people. Federal agents ended up arresting 475 people they say were undocumented, or working illegally.

“How in the world does this search warrant match the law enforcement activity that was on site? So a lot of questions started, began to bubble up, you know, bubble up,” says Tollison.

Tollison, as CEO of SEDA, also has a large role to play in the Joint Development Authority. It’s one of the three parties that signed the original contract that brought Hyundai to Georgia in 2022. In the contract, Georgia committed to giving Hyundai over a billion dollars in tax breaks, so long as it created over 8,000 permanent jobs by 2031.

Around 300 South Korean nationals were detained in the raid. Homeland Security says they were working on expired or improper visas. Tollison says they were doing specialized jobs that couldn’t be done by anyone else- not jobs that would qualify as contractually obligated full-time, permanent positions. It’s something he brought up as a possibility to WTOC in an interview in 2023.

“These folks that are here that got detained are not here taking away American jobs. They’re here for a certain purpose. They went back to Korea. We hope they can get back so they can finish the job they started and then train the Americans how to use the equipment,” says Tollison.

Less than a week after the raid, the Trump administration offered to keep the South Korean workers here to complete construction on the plant.

All but one of the workers opted to return home.

Without those workers- construction on the HL-GA Battery site is still halted, and the opening date of the plant has been pushed to 2026.

US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on social media on Sunday that moving forward, the US will ensure South Korean workers have proper visas.

“The way forward is to get workers back, the ones that can get back and finish the job they started because we got to get the project back on schedule,” says Tollison. “It shows me we do have a flawed system and it definitely needs reform. This is no secret.”

Despite the situation evolving into a foreign relations issue, Tollison says he doesn’t believe Georgia’s relationship with South Korea is damaged.

“I do believe that we’ve got some work to do and with the South Koreans, especially as they, when you read the news accounts over there, there’s a lot of concern over there. And we’re going to be dealing with that for sure. Georgia has a very strong record. We’ve got a 40 year relationship with South Korea. In fact, this year marks the 40th year anniversary that we’ve had an office in South Korea. But yeah, there is concern there. But again, I think this is just a little bit of a setback and we’ll do everything we can to get through it,” says Tollison.

Following our interview with Tollison, South Korean media outlets reported the country will open a probe into potential human rights abuses of its citizens during the ICE raid.

We also asked Tollison about the non-South Korean workers that were detained. You can find that story here. You can also watch our full interview above.