The NPR Politics Podcast - Are Trump’s Immigration And Manufacturing Goals At Odds?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

A recent immigration raid at a Hyundai manufacturing facility in Georgia led to the detention of nearly 500 workers, most of them South Korean nationals. Lawyers for some of the immigrants say they have highly specialized skills needed to get the factory online. We discuss whether raids like this impede President Trump’s stated goal of boosting American manufacturing.This episode: political correspondent Ashley Lopez, political reporter Stephen Fowler, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell & Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. Hi, this is Holly from Albany, Oregon. I'm sitting backstage at a community theater's production of Disney's Tarzan, hoping we have no cost of emergencies I need to fix. This show was recorded at 1.38 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, September 10, 2025.

By the time you hear this, things may have changed, but Jane and Tarzan will still be swinging through the jungle. Enjoy the show. I hope you enjoy it. I will say the last place you will ever find me is at a community theater. Really? Yeah. I don't like theater that much, and community theater is just like. It's not for me. Dang. Well, I'll replace you there in the audience.

Hey there. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics. I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And today on the show, we're taking a look at how President Trump's immigration enforcement push is at odds with his overall goal to boost American manufacturing. Stephen, I want to start with a recent immigration rate at a Hyundai factory near Savannah, Georgia. Can you explain what happened there? So, Ashley, there is a massive electric vehicle factory compound being built just outside of Savannah on Georgia's coast. There is an electric vehicle plant. There is a battery plant that is under construction. And last week, hundreds of law enforcement agents from a variety of agencies ranging from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to the Georgia State Patrol to the Department of Homeland Security, went to this construction site. and conducted an immigration rate.

They said it was the largest single-site operation in Homeland Security Investigations history. There were more than 470 people detained, and the government says they were all there in the United States illegally. There were people there from a lot of different countries, but according to the government, the majority of them were South Korean nationals, more than 300, that were there to help with this South Korean country. company that's been investing and building a factory in Georgia. And it is just a massive site, a massive immigration enforcement operation, and a massive question mark hanging over the future of this project and other investments happening in Georgia and across the country. I want to underscore that this is the largest raid, they say, that they've conducted since Trump

has become president. And that's been a huge, you know, theme of this Trump presidency, wanting to go after as many people as possible for and signal them for deportations. And this, of course, created a huge diplomatic rift with South Korea, crying hypocrisy because the Trump administration has really tried to get more foreign investment in the country. And Koreans saying that it's been too hard to get their workers to be able to be there to at least start up these facilities, not necessarily in the long term. So it's, you know, it's created a big, at least international political mess. I don't know how much it will filter down to a lot of people in the U.S. or has yet, but it certainly has created a huge international mess for the Trump administration.

Yeah. And, Stephen, what is the full response from South Korea so far? Well, it's important to note that there is a lot about the raid and the aftermath that we don't fully know yet. There was a search warrant that was unsealed in federal court that shows that there were actually four individuals that were targets, not 475, and that also a target was several subcontractors that were building this facility and all of their employment records and financial records and other things under a large-scale long-term investigation of employment verification and questions around if they are employing people legally. So we don't know a whole lot about the specific details. Some immigration attorneys that represent some of the individuals

that were detained say that these people were in the country and at that factory site working legally and lawfully. The South Korean government hasn't really said a whole lot about the specifics of the case, but the South Korean government and the American government have been working on a deal to send the South Koreans back home to their country. But there's a lot that we don't know of the specifics about this, which honestly raises even more question. Yeah, I want to get a fuller picture of the background of this facility. Correct me if I'm wrong, but part of the funding for this place came from the Biden administration. Well, in part, Georgia's had a long history in the last several years of recruiting a lot of international

investment. There are several other Korean companies that have electric vehicle manufacturing and other manufacturing facilities that have come to different parts of Georgia, especially outside of Metro Atlanta. Governor Brian Kemp, who's a Republican, has made several international trade trips to boost foreign investment. And so he has done, and Republicans in the state have done a lot to recruit foreign investment into Georgia. At the same time, a lot of the industries that have come have benefited from Democratic policies, especially when Joe Biden was president, and the funding for the Infrastructure Act and other green and clean energy jobs. So, there's a little bit of tension there where both sides are claiming credit, but really it's

an environment where on the Republican side they have touted, look, jobs are coming, investments are coming. And the Democrats have said, oh, also these are green and clean jobs. Yeah, I mean, Brian Kemp, the governor is a Republican, has been somebody who's been at odds with Donald Trump at various times because of the 2020 election and Kemp backing the state's vote counting, which, of course, Biden won the state by only. a little over some 10,000, 11,000 votes. This is a project that Kemp has said the largest economic development project in the state. So, you know, that kind of battle here, that tension, I should say, between Trump and Kemp is something that's a bit beneath the surface. We haven't seen

Kemp really want to speak out or say anything. But it certainly puts a bit of a crimp in that stance where a lot of Georgia governors have been trying, as Stephen said, to get foreign investment. And And especially in a place like South Korea, really made a lot of inroads to try to get that foreign investment. Yeah. And I can imagine for a Republican lawmaker, fighting the president on immigration is something they probably wouldn't want to do considering their base. Like, it is a kind of sticky political situation to be in. It is. But, you know, even months ago, we saw several Latino Republican members of Congress say that these raids at farms, at agricultural sites, that these are not the way to go. go about getting the hardened criminals out of the country like the Trump administration said it would do. And we've seen polling that shows that people are very heavily in favor of getting

out people who are convicted criminals in the country. That's pretty universal. But it becomes much murkier when you start thinking about these kinds of workplace raids and getting out people who might be doing jobs that other Americans aren't taking. Yeah. Well, let's talk about that, Stephen. I mean, I wonder how much Trump can actually accomplish his big goal of boosting American manufacturing without the help of immigrants in some way. Well, it's actually quite difficult because you can't just snap your fingers and build a new factory and build a new industry overnight. It would take a lot of time, a lot of years, a lot of money and a lot of manpower to be able to train American workers to be able to do some of these highly specialized

construction jobs and to do some of these highly specialized types of manufacturing and other things. So what you have is countries and companies that are investing time and energy and money in a way that President Trump would approve of to get these factories up and running, to get the jobs coming into the community, and to pave the way for Americans to do manufacturing jobs in the United States. And it takes a lot of help and effort. One other piece of this is that even before this raid, there have been concerns and issues that these different countries and companies have with the way the U.S. immigration system is set up and the limitations around visas and who can come in and work. Some of the people that were detained are on limited visas

that allow them to come for a short period of time. They have highly specialized skills, and they can basically just help out with that thing, not actually do any work, but kind of do consulting or other things because you can't just pick a random person off the street to understand complicated battery manufacturing processes. So there is a barrier to entry to accomplish Trump's manufacturing goal that turning the immigration enforcement apparatus on the manufacturing sector ends up harming things, not just from a diplomatic standpoint, but from the actual logistics of getting manufacturing off the ground. Well, and if you think about what's happened with South Korea. They've said that they're shutting down basically or putting on halt any of the other

projects and billions of dollars that they've put in to try to stand up factories and other places, which long term should mean more American jobs. So that for now has been put on hold. And that, again, for this short term, you know, rate of getting people out that they feel like have violated whatever visas that they had, that they are potentially putting in jeopardy other jobs that could go to Americans, at least down the road. Yeah. All right, we're going to take a quick break. More in a moment.

Support for NPR, and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. RWJF is a national philanthropy, working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org. And we're back. We've been talking about a large-scale immigration enforcement raid at a Hyundai factory in Georgia. Stephen, I mean, have you seen similar incidents at other manufacturing facilities specifically? Nothing at this scale. I mean, as we mentioned earlier, this is one of the largest investments in largest construction sites in Georgia, and it's the largest immigration enforcement action that Homeland Security investigation says it has undertaken. The previous largest was about 300 people in a marijuana farm in California.

But what we have seen is there are certain industries where there are more. people likely to be in the U.S. unlawfully working in construction, in agriculture, and other services that do tend to be happening in more red states, where this is ultimately what's going to happen to achieve the president's immigration enforcement goals and his deportation goals and things. And so we haven't seen anything to this scale. And I do wonder, after this raid and after the message that it's sent and the videos that ICE put out of the raid and everything if you won't see more in the future. In those red states where there have been raids, are elected leaders in any of those places speaking out against those raids? Well, there hasn't

really been anything as high profile as this Georgia raid. What you have seen is these elected leaders talking more about sending the National Guard to help with President Trump's takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force and the immigration enforcement there and what's happening in Chicago and other places. So you're not seeing vociferous opposition. You're also not necessarily seeing a lot of vocal support because there is that tightrope that these Republican elected officials have to walk of being supportive of immigration enforcement with acknowledging that it's more likely to affect industries and employers in their states. Well, we are hearing from Democratic lawmakers, though, right? Yeah, I mean, a case in point, Georgia, U.S. Senator Rafael

Warnock, who's a Democrat, his statement on the action at the Hyundai plant was two things. He said, one, the Trump administration owes Georgia and the country an explanation as to how this raid, which separated children from working parents, advances the president's stated immigration policy of removing dangerous and violent criminals from our streets. He also said, the companies involved must explain how so many workers were allegedly employed with improper documentation. So he's asking two questions here that kind of get at the Democrats' messaging around this is, one, what happened to the violent criminals you're taking people from construction sites and

trying to work and build American manufacturing. And two, maybe something needs to be done about the immigration system. And, Domenico, I think this is kind of surprising because, you know, it seems like immigration enforcement that impedes business growth would be seen as anti-conservative, right? There would be a place where Republican lawmakers, would take issue. Are you surprised at all that Republicans aren't speaking up about these raids at business places? Well, I'm not surprised that Republicans aren't speaking up very strongly against Trump and his policies because they've, you know, have a track record now of doing that across a whole bunch of

Trump's policies where they may have had previous beliefs, but not necessarily going to want to try to poke the bear, so to speak, with Trump because they don't want to look, you know, they don't want to get his rage back at them. But I think it is another instance in which what had traditionally been a Republican party that was pro free trade across the world has now kind of ceded to Trump's right wing populism, which is really looking to try to sort of build this trade wall, so to speak, and try to reshape the U.S. economy with the help of these tariffs to try to create and bring back more American manufacturing. That is a very, very, very long-term goal, one that is not focused on short-term money, gains, or jobs for a lot of these states. And I think there's an inherent tension there, but one that a lot of Republicans, conservatives, people in Georgia and elsewhere are really struggling to strike the right balance and figure out how to make this go away and be able to bring jobs to their states. And I do wonder if that creates a political liability for him because there won't be results, like let's say by the 20. 26 election. I mean, could there be possible blowback?

Well, it depends on how, you know, Georgia voters wind up taking this in. But remember, the most important thing on the conservative right during the Trump era has been culture. Yeah. And I don't see, you know, someone in rural Georgia who was a two-time Trump voter or three-time Trump voter suddenly switching sides to a liberal Democrat because they are, you know, maybe slightly upset about. this kind of raid, or if they just believe Trump and the Department of Homeland Security when they say that these folks were here illegally, they need to bring more American jobs. I think that that's probably the line you're going to hear more often from them. I also think in the big picture message about the economy, this is just another plank of the difficulty that Trump and Republicans are having and will potentially continue to have as it gets closer to the midterm elections. You know,

the tariffs are leading to rising costs for some of the inputs that go into construction and things like steel and aluminum. The tariffs on multiple countries that are investing or trying to invest in building American companies are pulling back some of the timelines for construction, raid or no raid. And in some cases, in some of these states, you may have a more bleak economic picture because the investments aren't coming, the costs are higher. And so it's a It's not a singular factor. It very rarely is a singular factor in politics, but the conflict between Trump's immigration policies, his manufacturing policies, his tariff policies, and the overall health of the economy

is definitely going to be something that will determine voter sentiments about Republican control of Congress and in the case of Georgia, the governor's race, a U.S. Senate race, and other things, where it's going to be something that is going to be top of mind, even if it's It's not the specifics of one raid at one construction site and one corner of the state. All right. Well, let's leave it there for today. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover politics.

I'm Stephen Fowler. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Support for NPR and the following message comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Foundation, RWJF is a national philanthropy working toward a future where health is no longer a privilege but a right. Learn more at RWJF.org.