If there are large numbers of illegals in the country today, and there heve been illegals in the country for many, many, many years, and they live an open life, often involved in the community, often welcomed into the community, and I can, and have, observed this with my own eyes since the 40s, then, after these facts, defacto, they obviously have some status.
Surely they do ... and that status is "illegal alien" and it will not change unless they go through the process of becoming a legal immigrant under the laws of this country - nor should it.
This is not a conversation about whether the people involved have red hair or black, have good teeth or bad, have body odor or not, whether they're "welcomed" or not or respected or not ... nor anything else. It is about whether they are here illegally or not (PERIOD).
The term "de facto" is correctly two words in the dictionary I use but - since you seem to "think different" perhaps is is spelled differently and even means something else in yours.