It doesn’t make any sense. Last week, the Trump administration executed the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history at a Hyundai Motor Co.-LG Energy Solution Ltd. battery plant in Ellabell, Georgia.

The surprise raid antagonized South Korea, one of America’s closest allies and a country that had signed a $350 billion trade pact with President Donald Trump just weeks earlier. It contradicted Trump’s stated immigration policy of removing the “worst of the worst” by detaining workers employed to help meet Trump’s goal of expanding manufacturing in the U.S. And by releasing video footage of South Korean nationals shackled at the wrists and ankles, Immigration and Customs Enforcement managed to humiliate South Korean businesses and investment firms that had recently pledged billions to expand operations in the U.S.

What’s the upside? It’s hard to see one. Automakers with factories in the U.S. are counting on EV battery deliveries to meet demand. Trump is hoping to stimulate foreign investment in American manufacturing. This raid helps achieve neither.

Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan told CNN on Sunday that there will be “more worksite enforcements” because “it’s a crime to hire an illegal alien.” Homan is correct, but he is also a master at sidestepping the real problem.

It’s not clear that “illegal alien” is even an accurate term to describe the people seized from the plant. Immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents some of the workers, told MSNBC on Monday that many of the employees at the plant had “valid visas” from the U.S. and were installing the equipment needed to make the batteries “so the plant could then employ U.S. workers.” He said ICE was looking for workers from Latin American countries and didn’t expect to apprehend Koreans, so the agents hadn’t even brought a translator.

It’s starting to look like another bumbling, high-profile error — but it also underscores a major flaw in Trump’s immigration policy. He would like to use his heavy-handed tariff policy to incentivize foreign investment in multibillion-dollar manufacturing plants, but building those facilities requires companies to bring engineers and contractors to the U.S. to help complete the job. The Trump administration has done nothing to make it any easier for the South Korean companies involved with the Hyundai Metaplant America site to secure the work visas needed.

Several officials associated with the project told Bloomberg News that they have struggled to get work visas under the Trump administration, especially for contractors and engineers with expertise in production line design. South Korean lawmaker Oh Gi-hyoung said at a news conference on Sunday that visa delays with the U.S. had complicated legitimate business travel for months, and speculated that many of the workers who were detained appear to have been trapped by visa delays that, in many cases, were caused by the Trump administration’s red tape. If the U.S. expects to attract investment from South Korean companies, he said, it should “match its calls for Korean investment with proper treatment of our citizens.”

Complaints have also surfaced recently from members of local unions. Barry Zeigler, the business manager of UA Local Union 188, which represents plumbers, pipe-fitters, welders, and air-conditioning technicians, told the New York Times that about 65 union members had been initially hired at the plant but were laid off earlier this month. He claimed they were replaced with undocumented workers.

The Trump administration should have sorted out the labor complaints from both sides of the equation here. Homan and ICE should have given the South Korean companies a firm deadline to make sure their employees had valid and up-to-date visas, and then put in place a process to fast-track those visas.

But of course, that kind of response would not have produced the headlines or sensational videos. And it would have required leadership and political finesse — skills that Trump’s Homeland Security team seems not to possess.

The raid also made no sense politically. When Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, unveiled the $7.6 billion Hyundai Motor Group deal in 2022 — with nearly $2 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives — he touted it as the largest economic development project in state history and predicted it would help Georgia become the hub of U.S. electric vehicle manufacturing.

Now, the raid has turned one of Kemp’s greatest achievements into a liability. By bringing the plant to a screeching halt, and interrupting the labor pipeline, costs will inevitably rise. What’s more, inflamed tensions between the American and Korean governments also raise questions about Hyundai’s investment in a major auto plant in Montgomery, Alabama and its $5 billion proposal to build a steel plant in Louisiana.

Trump has not had smooth relations with Kemp since the governor refused to go along with his illegal quest to manufacture votes in 2020, but Kemp has otherwise been a reliable foot soldier. Last week, Kemp announced that he would send more than 300 Georgia National Guard troops to Washington, DC, at the president’s request. Kemp has remained silent on the immigration raid except to say that the state Department of Public Safety coordinated with ICE to support the operation and would “always enforce the law, including all state and federal immigration laws.”

Kemp doesn’t have authority over immigration enforcement. Trump does, but his administration’s focus on deportations over governing is no way to revive manufacturing in this country. The U.S. is long overdue for an overhaul of its work visa program, and the Georgia fiasco should be the catalyst.

Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Miami Herald, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.

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P.J. Fleck’s personality includes a sarcastic streak, so it was worth checking if the Gophers football coach was genuine with one comment he made last week.

“I’m giving you all a little secret,” he prefaced during his KFAN radio show Sept. 2. “There is a cut-up (video) that we have that is basically: ‘If Coach Fleck ever dies, play this at his funeral.’ ”

That, in fact, wasn’t an attempt at gallows humor.

The 44-year-old Fleck isn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon, but when he does eventually leave this Earth, he wants an edited string of hustle plays made by Minnesota (and Western Michigan) players to be played on a loop at his celebration of life.

Minnesota Gophers head coach P. J. Fleck leaving the field after a NCAA football game against the Northwestern State Demons at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On that topic, he did mix in a grim joke.

“As everyone goes through the walk line — there might be six people there — if you are looking at the screen, you are watching ‘how’ clips of extra effort because that is what gets me really excited in football,” Fleck added on the radio.

One hustle play in each of the Gophers’ first two games will be added to the reel. More will be required when the Gophers (2-0) play California (2-0) on Saturday night in Berkeley, Calif.

In the season opener against Buffalo, it was tailback Darius Taylor tracking down Buffalo linebacker Mitchell Gonser after his interception to save a Bulls’ touchdown.

In Week 2 against Northwestern (La.) State, it was linebacker Mason Carrier blitzing into a Demons screen pass to running back Myion Hicks. Hicks caught the pass near the sideline and had blockers in front to turn it into an explosive play, but Carrier turned on a dime and chased down Hicks for a relatively short 9-yard gain.

“That is us,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press. “That one goes in the funeral tape.

“We pour our life into this; this is my life,” Fleck later explained. “I want the players to watch themselves. I don’t want them to think about me in a casket. I don’t want them thinking about that and being sad. Watch some ball.”

Offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh said hustle plays are the “No. 1 thing that we look at” after every single play. Then it’s scheme, execution and technique.

“I have loved when you put on the tape from last week and even the week before against Buffalo, the level of strain and physicality and how we have attacked each play offensively has been something that I’m very proud of,” Harbaugh said. “I want to continue to see that this week.”

Defensive coordinator Danny Collins said what happens in games is “just proof” of what is emphasized in practice.

Late in the first quarter last week, U linebacker Maverick Baranowski stripped running back Zay Davis of the football and fellow linebacker Matt Kingsbury scooped it and scored from 25 yards out.

Baranowski did a very same thing a seven-on-seven passing drill in spring practices.

“It doesn’t just happen on game day,” Collins said. “You have got to train those things. And when it does happen, you have to highlight them, because it shows the proof that it’s working.”

After no takeaways against Buffalo, the Gophers had four against Northwestern State. Turnovers might be pivotal come Saturday, when the Gophers are a slim 2.5-point favorite over the Bears.

“Those ‘how’ clips are what you want to be on,” Baranowski said. “It’s cool making a big play, but at the end of the day when you are recognized for how hard you play, that means a lot.”

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On the latest episode, host Kadisha Davis speaks to Charisma White of the Safety Net Activists about her work in homelessness advocacy and her past experiences looking for housing with a Section 8 voucher.

A rally outside City Hall in 2023 calling for an end to family homelessness. (Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit)

Charisma White grew up around activists and advocates. Her mother was an artist who attended Medgar Evers College and was deeply involved in community advocacy in Brooklyn, work that gave White the opportunity to meet prominent civil rights activists like Betty Shabazz and Coretta Scott King.

“I was always involved in protesting,” White said this week on the latest episode of the “Hear Our Voices” podcast, which shares stories, resources and information about family homelessness in New York City (the podcast is produced by the Family Homelessness Coalition, whose members include Citizens’ Committee for Children, a City Limits funder).

But it wasn’t until her own experiences with homelessness that she “fully stepped into the role” of activist herself, she said.

“I wanted to find out…where are the resources?” White told podcast host Kadisha Davis. “Where does the money and funding that comes down from the government to go into the resources, how is it getting there? Where is it going? What stops does it make along the way? Does it actually get to the community?”

White has worked as an advocate with Urban Pathways, the New York City Continuum of Consumer Care and the Safety Net Activists, an organizing group that’s part of the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project. “The number one thing is we have to stick together as a people, right? If we don’t stick together, we won’t make it anywhere,” she said of that work.

You can listen to the conversation below—the first in a two-part interview—in which White also describes her experiences as Section 8 tenant, and the frustration of trying to find an apartment with rental voucher in New York City.

“For five years with my voucher in hand, I could not find housing, and I didn’t really think it was the issue of the voucher,” she told Davis. “It was more of the issue of agencies’ non-communication with each other, landlords and realtors discriminating against the voucher.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

The post Hear Our Voices Podcast: ‘If We Don’t Stick Together, We Won’t Make It’ appeared first on City Limits.

The mayor of Venice on Thursday condemned a reported attack over the weekend on an American Orthodox Jewish couple by assailants who shouted “Free Palestine” as a “serious and unacceptable act.”

Italian news agency AGI said three assailants, believed to be of North African origin, were apprehended.

Venice is home to what is widely considered the oldest Jewish Ghetto in Europe. The lagoon city “is and must continue to be an open, welcoming, and safe city, where mutual respect is the foundation of civil coexistence,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement Thursday.

He praised law enforcement agencies for having quickly intervened to identify those responsible, with the help of video surveillance cameras.

The Jewish Community of Venice said in a statement that the attack was just the latest antisemitic act it has registered. It condemned it as a “cowardly and despicable act,” and warned that it called into question Venice’s tradition as a welcoming city.