Attorney General Jeff Sessions will meet with Austin Mayor Steve Adler and other U.S. mayors this week to discuss the definition of "sanctuary city."[/caption]

Hoping to get a standard definition for “sanctuary city,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler will join several other mayors Tuesday in Washington D.C. for a meeting with Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

In an op-ed published Monday morning, Adler said the answer to the question asking "What is a sanctuary city?” has become convoluted, and the federal government has been elusive in defining the term on which so much rides.

“With so much on the line, including federal funding, public safety, and relations with immigrant communities, mayors need to know what is meant by a term being used by a lot of people to mean many different things,” Adler wrote.

On April 21, Sessions sent letters to Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, Cook County in Illinois, and the California Department of Corrections to seek evidence the jurisdictions were in compliance with federal regulations that oblige government agencies to meet requests from the Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding the citizenship or immigration status of any individual within their jurisdiction.

In the event of non-compliance, Sessions threatened to revoke federal grants from the jurisdictions that help pay for equipment, training and data collection. Adler said Austin and Travis County’s exclusion from the attorney general’s mailing list further raises the question over the definition of a “sanctuary city,” a term which has seen a variety of interpretations by government officials this year. According to Adler, they include: Not complying with the INS request for citizenship verification; not complying with “warrantless detainer requests” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement; “preventing or hindering” ICE in any way.

“Asking local police to appear as federal immigration agents destroys trust,” Adler said. “We know what keeps our cities safe, and we’re happy to share what we’ve learned. ... That’s the message that we want to take to the Attorney General this weekend, and it’s more important than any definition that trades on fear."