San Francisco Kaiser nurse faces firing as DACA renewal stalls

Outside Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center on Geary Boulevard, about 50 nurses rallied for Ariel, a 34-year-old surgical nurse who has spent more than a decade at the hospital and is now facing termination because her DACA work authorization renewal has stalled.

Ariel came to the United States from the Philippines when she was 2. Colleagues said Kaiser had put her on a 30-day unpaid administrative leave while the federal paperwork moved forward, and they urged the health system to extend that leave instead of firing her over a delay they said was not her fault. The termination was slated for Thursday, even though her renewal was still pending.

The case has become a test of what discretion Kaiser is willing to use when immigration backlogs collide with bedside staffing. National Nurses United said Kaiser nurses in similar situations at the University of California system are not under threat of losing their jobs because contract language protects them from termination while renewal paperwork is processed. The union also said CNA represents more than 25,000 registered nurses at Kaiser facilities across California.

For San Francisco, the stakes go beyond one worker. Hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities depend heavily on immigrant labor, and losing an experienced surgical nurse can ripple through operating rooms, patient schedules and already strained staffing plans. The case also highlights how a federal delay can quickly become a local health care problem, forcing a trained clinician off the floor even when she remains eligible to renew.

The pressure is not isolated to one nurse. More than 16,000 active DACA recipients were living in the Bay Area as of March 2025, according to federal data cited in the report, making this a regional workforce issue with direct consequences for employers across health care, education and other essential sectors. Local immigrant-rights advocates have said some renewals have taken as long as five months, far longer than the roughly three weeks they once required.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it continues to accept and process DACA renewal requests and related employment authorization applications, and that current grants remain valid until they expire unless individually terminated. The agency says DACA, first announced on June 15, 2012, is renewable in two-year periods, and its FAQ says requestors may seek expedited processing.

For Ariel and her coworkers, the question now is whether Kaiser will treat a paperwork delay as a temporary interruption or a reason to cut off a trained nurse who has already spent years caring for San Franciscans.