Cities and towns across the United States that offer safe haven
to illegal immigrants are known as "sanctuary cities." Generally
speaking, these municipalities refuse to enforce federal
immigration statutes and make no distinction between those
legally present in America and those who have come here in
defiance of the established legal procedures guiding lawful
passage into the United States. There are two ways in which a
city's policy to harbor illegal aliens might be executed:
formally (known as de jure) and informally (known as de facto).
If the decision to offer sanctuary to the lawbreakers is written
and appropriately promulgated by one or another local governing
body (in the form of ordinances, special orders, codes, policy
guidelines, etc.) that is a de jure sanctuary city. De jure is a
legal term of art that comes from the Latin and basically means
"according to the law." Several sanctuary cities openly defy
existing federal law (namely the Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act o