"Feds, Wilson dispute illegal immigrant costs", 15 Sept 1994, SF 
Examiner, p. A4.

"Illegal immigration:  impact on California", Office of Governor Pete 
Wilson, press packet, 1994.

"Fiscal impacts of undocumented aliens: selected estimates for seven
states", Urban Institute, 1994.

Background:  The federal government has established a program that
provides incentives for undocumented immigrants to violate
U.S. immigration laws.  As a result or federal mandates, states are
required to provide health care and education services to illegal
immigrants and their children.  Further, the federal government
confers citizenship to children of parents residing illegally in the
state, guaranteeing them education, welfare, and health care.  The
federal government has failed to fully reimburse states for costs
associated with its immigration policies.

These two reports (from the Governor's office and the Urban Institute)
provide two contrasting analyses of the economic costs and benefits of
illegal immigration.

Summary of the Governor's office report:  Illegal immigrants place a
large financial burden on the state of California.  The federal
government mandates states to provide services to illegal immigrants
at the expense of the other residents of the state.

Summary of the Urban Institute report:  The costs of public school
education of illegal immigrants (undocumented aliens) are estimated
for seven states:  California, Arizona, New York, New Jersay, Texas,
and Illinois.  These states account for over 85\% of the undocumented
population based on estimates from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service.  The estimated costs from the Urban Institute Study are much
lower than the estimates from the Governor's office.

Objective:  To estimate the economic costs of illegal immigrants on
state budgets for education (and also some estimates of costs of
incarceration).

Kind of study:  Economic analysis.  

Measurements:  Estimates of number of undocumented immigrants in the
state, proportion of school age, percent attending school, and
per-pupil state and local costs of education.

Statistical methods used:  Estimate cost is just obtained by
multiplying the estimates of the measurements given above.  The
estimates of the number of illegal immigrants comes from the Census
Bureau (updating the April 1993 estimate from the Census Bureau and
the Immigration and Naturalization Service and adding a projection up
to January, 1995, based on a Census Bureau estimate of an annual
illegal immigrant influx of 100,000).  Methodology in a 1992 Los
Angeles County study was used to estimate the school participation
rate of school-age illegal immigrant children, which took into account
dropout rates.  Average costs per pupil come from state sources.

2 tables, 10 graphs

Stated conclusions:  According to the Urban Institute, public schooling
of undocumented alien children cost California $1.3 billion in 1994.
According to the Governor's office, this cost was $1.7 billion.

How does this relate to the rest of the literature:  The numbers from
the two organizations differ because the Urban Institute estimates the
number of illegal immigrant kits in school to be 307,000 (p. 9 of that
report), and the Governor's office estimates it to be 392,000 (p. 3 of
that report).  There is a big dispute over how to estimate the number
of illegal immigrants, the proportion of them who are children, and
the proportion of these children who are in school.