Immigration Article of the Day: Paradox of Privilege for Asian Guestworkers in Silicon Valley by Ming Hsu Chen

Paradox of Privilege for Asian Guestworkers in Silicon Valley by Ming Hsu Chen, 51 B.Y.U. Law Review (2026)

Abstract

This Article examines the liminality of temporary workers in the technology industry. Based on the experiences of technology workers who hold the H-1B work visa at prominent tech companies in Silicon Valley, it identifies a "paradox of privilege," wherein the construction of temporary work visas ensures skilled workers simultaneously enjoy privileged status-through lawful status, education, and technical skills-and suffer from profound vulnerability to legal, economic, and racial subordination due to their dual dependence on private employers and a burdensome bureaucracy to maintain their legality and livelihood. Drawing on original interviews with thirtytwo technology workers, I demonstrate how intersecting legal liminality, economic precarity, and racial hierarchy position predominantly Asian tech workers similarly to their domestic counterparts: Asians and Asian American laborers, who are the descendants and diaspora of "coolie laborers" during the Chinese exclusion era. Their intertwined subordination leads to a social construction of their temporary visa that renders Asian tech workers impermanent, even though the legal design of the visa is colorblind and enables a formal path to citizenship. The paradox of their formal and social position status is resolved by the post-hoc rationalization of immigration law as the mechanism for the exclusion of Asian tech workers, which in turn animates the inequitable design of the temporary visa.