Let that sink in. We're not talking about someone gaming the system. We're talking about a working professional in one of the most essential industries in the country, held hostage by a federal government that has spent decades punting on immigration reform.

The good news: her DACA was renewed. She gets to keep doing her job. Patients at Kaiser keep getting cared for by someone who clearly earned her place there. Crisis averted — for now.

But here's the thing that should make everyone uncomfortable, regardless of where you fall on immigration: DACA was always a temporary executive band-aid. It was never meant to be permanent policy. And yet here we are, more than a decade later, with hundreds of thousands of people — many of them nurses, teachers, engineers, and small business owners — still living renewal to renewal, their entire livelihoods hanging on processing times and political winds.

This isn't a left-right issue. It's a governance issue. Congress has had since 2012 to pass something — anything — that gives DACA recipients a clear, permanent legal pathway. Instead, we get campaign speeches and finger-pointing while real people twist in the wind.

If you believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility, then you should believe that people who've followed the rules, built careers, and contributed to their communities deserve better than perpetual uncertainty. And if you believe in fiscal responsibility, consider the cost of forcing trained healthcare workers out of jobs during a nursing shortage.

Washington's inability to legislate isn't just embarrassing — it's expensive, it's cruel, and San Francisco is living with the consequences.