When federal law enforcement raided a Hyundai plant in Georgia this week, some migrants ran into a sewage pond to try to escape, with one man trying to flip the boat that agents were using to fish them out of the water.

More than 475 people at the plant were identified as “unlawfully working” at the plant, according to U.S. Attorney Meg Heap, who announced the results of the raid Friday.

She said more than 400 agents were involved in the operation and over 400 migrants were detained.

“The goal of this operation is to reduce illegal employment and prevent employers from gaining an unfair advantage by hiring unauthorized workers. Another goal is to protect unauthorized workers from exploitation,” she said.

Homeland Security Investigations, a division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, led the raid, joined by the Georgia State Patrol and over half a dozen other federal agencies, including the IRS and the Labor Department’s inspector general.

Prosecutors said as agents were serving their search warrant, a handful of people ran into the sewage pond on the premises. Then came the attempt to flip the boat.

“These people were captured and identified as illegal workers,” the U.S. attorney’s office said.

The raid drew condemnation from the Georgia AFL-CIO, which pronounced itself “outraged.”

“This raid is the latest in an ongoing campaign of harassment that has targeted immigrant Georgians as they try to earn an honest living,” said Yvonne Brooks, president of the state AFL-CIO.

She said when illegal immigrants are detained, it “increases the workload burden” on the other workers.

She said several people have died during operations at the plant, which she said begs for more labor safety oversight rather than action by ICE.

But Steve Schrank, HSI’s special agent in charge in the area, said the migrants weren’t even the focus.

“This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” he said. “This has been a multimonth criminal investigation where we have developed evidence, conducted interviews, gathered documents and presented evidence to the court in order to attain a judicial search warrant.”

He said some of the 475 were here illegally, while others came legally on visas or visa-waiver terms that didn’t allow them to work.

He said no criminal charges have been filed, though illegal immigrants were detained under immigration law.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry issued a complaint about the raid.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Jaewoong said, according to The Associated Press.

Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America is a massive facility west of Savannah. It manufactures electric vehicles and batteries.

It broke ground in 2022, and the first vehicle rolled off the production line last year.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.