The Latest: DHS says 475 people were detained during an immigration raid in Georgia

Some 475 people were detained during an immigration raid at a sprawling Georgia site where South Korean auto company Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles, according to a Homeland Security official.

Steven Schrank, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations, said at a news briefing Friday that the majority of the people detained were from South Korea. “This operation underscores our commitment to jobs for Georgians and Americans,” Schrank said.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong described the number of detained South Koreans as “large,” though he did not provide an exact figure.

Thursday’s raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history.

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The president in a post on his social media network Friday night said U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson “will be an outstanding Senator.”

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said she is not seeking another term in 2026. At least two other Republicans had already entered the primary before Hinson this week announced her campaign.

The Pentagon has made some immediate updates to its signs and emblems just after Trump signed an executive order to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War.

Employees swapped out the large letters that spelled out “Department of Defense” outside of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office. Employees also replaced Hegseth’s biography and office signs to say “Secretary of War.”

Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg’s office signs were updated as was the Pentagon’s official website from “ defense.gov ” to “ war.gov.”

When asked what the changes will cost, a defense official said the cost estimate will “fluctuate” and a “clearer estimate” will be reported at a later time. The official wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Tennis Association said Friday that Trump was attending as a guest of someone whose identity wasn’t disclosed, and that he will be watching the match from a suite.

The president is planning to attend the men’s singles final at the U.S. Open on Sunday, his first appearance at the Grand Slam tournament in New York since 2015.

He frequently attended in the years before that when he lived in New York and before he launched his political career. It’s the latest high-profile sporting event for Trump after going to the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, UFC fights and the FIFA Club World Cup since beginning his second White House term

Brian Glenn, a reporter with conservative outlet Real America’s Voice, asked Trump about the blue tent and called it “an eyesore.”

Trump asked where there tent is and said he hadn’t heard of it but said, “Take it down. Today, right now.” He then said “We’re going to look into it right now.”

The tent, which has been up since 1981 calling for peace and world disarmament, was still standing Friday evening.

Trump is renewing calls for a former Colorado county clerk convicted of orchestrating an election data-breach scheme to be released from prison.

In response to a question, Trump said former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters should be set free. “We’re going to do something,” he said, calling Peters a “real patriot.”

The comments came a day after a letter written by Peters was posted on her X account in which she urged Trump to help release her ahead of next year’s midterm elections to ensure its integrity. One of her attorneys, Peter Ticktin, confirmed the letter had been written by her and posted by someone else.

Peters is serving a nine-year prison sentence after a jury found her guilty last year of allowing someone to gain unauthorized access to the county election system and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity.

Trump is telling reporters that his list of possible Federal Reserve Chair candidates, who would replace current Chair Jerome Powell, has been cut down to three people. Trump made the remarks Friday in the Oval Office.

Trump teased Kevin Hassett, the current director of the National Economic Council, as one of the three candidates.

Hassett spoke in the Oval Office about the latest jobs numbers.

The Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added just 22,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month. Hassett said that he expects the latest jobs numbers to be revised upwards as the Bureau of Labor Statistics installs a new leader.

The BLS’ previous leader, Erika McEntarfer, was publicly fired last month after the agency issued numbers that show hiring had slowed in July and was much less in May and June that previously estimated.

“No, I didn’t do that,” Trump said when asked.

He added that “there’s nothing wrong with doing that,” but again denied he did. He said Adams is “free to do what he wants” when it comes to staying in the New York City mayoral race.

Trump then said he thought Adams was “a very nice person” and then said “I helped him. He was, he was, got caught up in a scam by the Biden administration, what they did. So I, I helped him out a little bit.”

The Trump administration’s Justice Department dropped corruption charges against Adams earlier this year.

Trump knows well the property where the G20 summit will be held next December in Miami: It will be at the Doral golf property owned by the president’s family.

He said of having the summit at his property: “There’s no money in it.” But Trump added “we want to make sure it’s good.”

It is another example of Trump blurring the line between domestic and world affairs and his business interests.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams insisted again Friday that he won’t end his reelection campaign, stressing that he will remain in the race as reports swirl that he’s been approached about possibly taking a job in the Trump administration.

In a hastily called news conference at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion, Adams told reporters “I am running for reelection”

“I’m running, and I’m going to beat Mamdani,” he said, referring to the Democratic nominee, Zohran Mamdani.

The mayor has spent the week fending off news reports that intermediaries for Trump have contacted people in his orbit to talk about whether he would consider abandoning his campaign to take a federal job.

Earlier Friday, Adams, a Democrat, released a statement that said he “will always listen if called to serve our country” but that he had not yet received any “formal offers.”

The president confirmed on Friday what had long been suspected: He will not attend this year’s Group of 20 summit in South Africa.

“I won’t be going this year,” said Trump, who has had a rocky relationship with South Africa’s leaders. Vice President JD Vance will go in Trump’s place.

This year’s summit is scheduled for November in Johannesburg.

“If they do put us in a dangerous position they will be shot down,” Trump said.

The Defense Department said late Thursday that two Venezuelan military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel, calling it “a highly provocative move” and warning Maduro’s government against further actions.

The Venezuelan military action came after the U.S. carried out a deadly strike on a boat that U.S. officials say was carrying drugs from Venezuela.

Trump and other administration officials are warning that they will continue to carry out such U.S. military strikes to stem the flow of illicit drugs by Latin American drug cartels.

The Trump administration is set to allow a West African leader accused of flagrant corruption to travel to the United States for this month’s U.N. General Assembly and cities outside New York that he has previously been barred from visiting.

Two officials familiar with the matter said the State Department is processing a temporary sanctions waiver for the vice president of Equatorial Guinea, Teodoro “Teddy” Obiang, following recommendations that it is in the U.S. national interest to blunt growing Chinese influence in the country and boost American business interests there. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

Obiang has been accused, and in some cases convicted, of pilfering his impoverished country’s resources to feed a lifestyle of luxury cars, mansions and superyachts.

— By Matthew Lee

As Trump spoke about the Pentagon rebrand, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell used the moment to call for more military spending.

“If we call it the Dept. of War, we’d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars,” McConnell wrote on X. “Can’t preserve American primacy if we’re unwilling to spend substantially more on our military than Carter or Biden.”

McConnell, who is spending the twilight of his Senate career focused on promoting hawkish defense policies, added: “‘Peace through strength’ requires investment, not just rebranding.”

“This is something we thought long and hard about,” Trump said, adding, “We’ve been talking about it for months.”

Pete Hegseth, who will now be known as the secretary of war, noted that since the U.S. changed the name in 1947, “We haven’t won a major war since.”

Hegseth said the move is about “restoring the warrior ethos” and that the department would fight “decisively” and not “endless wars.”

That prompted Trump to blame being too politically correct and “wokey” in the past for the U.S. not having more military success.

The president said the rebranding sends a key signal to the world.

“I think it sends a message of victory, really a message of strength,” Trump said.

Andrew Bates, a former deputy press secretary in the Biden White House, testified before lawmakers behind closed doors for more than four hours.

Bates appeared as part of House Republicans’ inquiry into former President Joe Biden’s mental state and alleged cognitive decline while in office.

Bates did not respond to reporter questions, but instead told the crowd: “I want to know why Ghislaine Maxwell is in minimum security.”

The House Oversight Committee last month conducted an interview with Maxwell, a convicted sexual predator, as part of a separate investigation into the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

At issue in the Biden health investigation are allegations from oversight Republicans that Biden was not aware of his administration’s actions. Biden has strongly denied such accusations and called them distracting insults.

Top staff from the national security committees in the Senate and leadership offices had been expecting the morning briefing and some had already assembled in a secure facility at the Capitol, according to a person familiar with the private meeting and unauthorized to discuss it.

But the Pentagon officials never showed and sent word the meeting was being canceled.

Congressional leaders have pressed for more information on why the Trump administration took the military action.

A defense official said the meeting will be rescheduled.

— By Lisa Mascaro and Konstantin Toropin

A federal judge on Friday ruled against the Trump administration from ending temporary legal protections that have granted more than 1 million people from Haiti and Venezuela the right to live and work in the United States.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of San Francisco for the plaintiffs means 600,000 Venezuelans whose temporary protections expired in April or whose protections were about to expire Sept. 10 have status to stay and work in the United States.

The president on his social media site said it was “very unfair” that the European Union was fining Google $3.5 billion.

Trump said he would use Section 301 tariffs from the 1974 Trade Act if the EU continues to penalize U.S. companies.

The president on Thursday had dinner at the White House with several tech titans, including executives and founders from Apple, Google and Microsoft.

The president also objected to a fine the EU charged to Apple.

“They should get their money back!” Trump wrote. “We cannot let this happen to brilliant and unprecedented American Ingenuity and, if it does, I will be forced to start a Section 301 proceeding to nullify the unfair penalties being charged to these Taxpaying American Companies.”

▶ Read more about the EU’s fine on Google.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said Friday during a news conference in Arkansas said his agency would vote at its Sept. 30 on a proposal to lift a restriction that prohibits state and federal prisons from jamming signals of phones that prisoners aren’t allowed to have.

Prisons officials have long said the devices are dangerous, allowing inmates to run criminal enterprises while behind bars. The debate over using technology to block calls and messages has gone on for years, and federal legislation to allow jamming has repeatedly failed.

A message was left seeking comment from CTIA, a wireless industry group that opposes jamming.

Immigration attorney Charles Kuck said both of his clients who were detained arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that enables them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

“They were both engaging in normal visa waiver activities,” Kuck said, adding that his clients haven’t been able to call him yet. “Still lawfully here doing the activities that are lawful for a visa waiver to do.”

One of his clients, he said, has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other arrived about 45 days ago. He did not provide details of the kind of work they were doing.

“They were planning to go home shortly,” Kuck said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reshuffling his senior staff in Foggy Bottom as he takes on an increasingly influential role in the Trump administration’s national security leadership.

A senior State Department official says that his current chief of staff, Mike Needham, will become the department’s new policy planning chief, a post that has often has an outsized role in formulating policy.

Needham, who will retain his position as State Department counselor, will replace Michael Anton, who plans to leave government later this year after completing a review of a new National Security Strategy. Anton will hold a different title until he departs, the official said.

Rubio’s current deputy chief of staff, Dan Holler, will replace Needham in the chief of staff position, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement of the changes set to be made on Monday.

Both Needham and Holler are former high-level Rubio aides from his days in the Senate.

— By Matthew Lee

The plant is still under construction. It’s where Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power electric vehicles.

Some of the detained employees worked for the battery manufacturer, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site, Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, told reporters Friday.

Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson. Hyundai Motor Company said in a statement Friday it was “working to understand the specific circumstances” of the raid and detentions.

“As of today, it is our understanding that none of those detained is directly employed by Hyundai Motor Company,” the company’s statement said.