Illegal aliens living and working in the U.S. have now co-opted the entitlement mentality present in too many Americans. Worse, their demands for the right to vote, guaranteed by our Constitution to citizens only, and access to social services are encouraged by elected officials trying to buy their future votes. At recent rallies Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY), to name just two, argued that illegal aliens must be allowed to remain in the U.S. and put on the path toward full citizenship rights. In other words, let’s skip the illegal part.

In addition to demands for voting rights, health care coverage and U.S. citizenship, many illegal aliens feel they are entitled to U.S. soil itself. Two groups that have helped organize the illegal alien rallies across the country, the Aztlan Movement and the Mexica Movement, believe it is American citizens who are in fact on their continent illegally. The Aztlan Movement seeks to create a separate nation comprised of northern Mexico and parts of the American Southwest, including California, Arizona and New Mexico. Members of the Mexica Movement, who waved signs at recent rallies that read “This Is Our Continent, Not Yours”, seek to completely remove Americans from North America and surrender control of the U.S. to Mexico.

The entitlement and class warfare mentality fostered for a century by liberal presidents, congressional leaders, labor union leaders and heads of liberal organizations in fact obscures their real goal. They seek complete government control of our lives and our businesses, which ultimately can only be achieved with your vote. Since the inception of the income tax code in 1913, to the birth of the Social Security system in 1935 and the programs that have followed, the end goal is always bigger government. It is also important to remember that those who occupy the positions of power will try to achieve their goal by any means possible. If it takes convincing the public that our planet is somehow warming because we drive cars with the air conditioner running, then so be it. If it takes increasing entitlement spending programs to 100 percent of the federal budget, so be it. Whatever it takes.

The United States would never have become the United States had the litany of entitlement programs and the unnatural attitudes they foster been in place in the 1800s and early 1900s. This was the time when newly freed slaves struck out to work on achieving their own dreams, when American expansion and settlement headed west, and when millions of Europeans crossed the Atlantic for a hard but better life. The only thing promised was abundant opportunity, given in exchange for assimilation and adherence to the rule of law.

We must demand that our president and Congress secure our borders and our sovereignty as a nation of laws and citizen rights. To those who enter this country legally, welcome to America. Illegal entitlement is not an option.