ICE faces $2M claim over unprecedented raid at Hyundai site in Georgia

But Alfredo Fajardo Melgarejo alleges the raid was the start of a terrifying and prolonged ordeal for him and his family members, who spent the first 11 days of his detention believing he was dead because he wasn’t allowed to make a phone call.

Fajardo said he was authorized to work in the U.S., but that the masked agents who arrested him did so with racial prejudice and excessive force, without a warrant or probable cause. He said he spent nine months detained at ICE’s facility in Folkston, Georgia, where he was given rotten and expired food and denied medical care, causing various health issues.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that its officers did not use excessive force during the raid. The agency said Fajardo entered the U.S. illegally and was released into the country by the Biden administration after he encountered federal agents near the Mexican border in 2023.

“To be clear: work authorization does NOT confer legal status in the United States,” the spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.

The 54-year-old was deported to Colombia in May and remains separated from family members living in the U.S., his lawyers told the AJC. They’re seeking $2 million in compensation from ICE on his behalf.

“The officers’ extreme conduct on this day needlessly injured and terrorized Mr. Fajardo,” his written claim, filed on the anniversary of the raid, says. “He lost his job, his family lost their primary source of income, and he suffered damages from his separation from his family.”

Federal officials said on the day after the raid that it included a criminal search warrant and stemmed from a monthslong investigation into alleged undocumented and illegal work.

Fajardo’s claim was filed with ICE under the Federal Tort Claims Act, an administrative process required by law for a case like this. If the dispute isn’t resolved through the administrative process, it can lead to a lawsuit.

Fajardo is represented by attorneys from the nonprofit organizations Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, known as CDM, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

Fajardo alleged that during the raid, an ICE agent pointed a rifle at him, choked him and applied so much pressure to his lower back that he involuntarily urinated. He said the agent made a racist comment against Latinos and bound his wrists so tightly he felt swelling within seconds.

Fajardo said another ICE agent told him he would be free to go after reviewing his valid work permit, driver’s license, Georgia identification card and other documents. But he said he instead spent several hours detained at the factory alongside hundreds of other Latino and Asian workers before they were handcuffed, chained around the stomach and feet, and put on a bus to the Folkston ICE facility without explanation.

“The metal handcuffs and metal chains had been sitting out in the sun for hours, and they burned Mr. Fajardo’s skin,” his claim says. “As he was chained and loaded onto the bus, Mr. Fajardo felt that the officers were treating him like an animal. The bathrooms on the bus were chained shut.”

Fajardo said he was first allowed to contact family members on Sept. 15, 2025, when they told him they thought he had been killed in the raid because they had not heard from him. He said he was transferred in April to another ICE facility in Louisiana, where he spent several weeks before being deported.

The DHS spokesperson said ICE’s facilities are regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure compliance with “performance-based national detention standards.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” the spokesperson said.

Attorney Julia Solórzano, CDM’s legal and policy director, told the AJC that Fajardo is the only worker arrested in the raid who is being represented by the nonprofit. She said she doesn’t know of any related cases, though there’s another year before the deadline to file such claims.

“I think a lot of times the immigration authorities in this country try to talk about it like somebody is either lawfully here or they’re not and there’s a very clear, bright line, but Alfredo’s experience kind of highlights how complicated that can be,” she said. “We do have laws that allow people to come into the country and to seek immigration relief, regardless of how they entered the country, and that’s the situation that Alfredo was in.”