Ellabell, Georgia (CNN) — If you drove into Ellabell, Georgia, on State Route 204 – past a few double-wides, a couple of churches and a Dollar General – you’d never guess a massive automobile complex sits just a few miles away.
The town is small, unincorporated and best known for canoeing on the Ogeechee River or teeing off at Black Creek Golf Club. Until last week, its biggest claim to fame was being chosen as the site of Hyundai’s first fully electrified vehicle and battery manufacturing campus in the United States, a project state leaders promised would bring 8,500 jobs and transform the rural economy.
The narrative cracked when, in the largest immigration raid of President Donald Trump’s second term, nearly 500 federal, state and local officers descended on the Hyundai–LG battery plant construction site and arrested 475 people…