There are a few scenes in classic movies that are so effective that the dialogue has passed into the common language.  One of those is in The Treasure of Sierra Madre.  Mexican bandits have confronted American gold miners, including Humphrey Bogart.  The bandits claim to be federal police.
   Challenged to produce their badges, one gives the memorable reply, “Badges?  We don’t need no steenkin’ badges,” and then they begin shooting.
   Well a situation began in New Jersey, then played out in the Court of Appeals of Maryland, which justifies the modified use of that line.  It also should concern all citizens of the U.S. who care about where this nation is headed.
   Ramiro Silba Alavez, a citizen of Mexico, got a drivers license in New Jersey by presenting false documents which represented that he was a US citizen and a resident of New Jersey.   NJ required that anyone seeking a drivers license there show proof of citizenship.  Somehow, NJ got word of his false documents and “withdrew” his license after it expired in 1991.
   Señor Alavez, being both cheeky and resourceful, then moved to Maryland, which doesn’t bother to check whether a license applicant has a legal right to be there.  Alavez applied for a Maryland license.  That was denied because Maryland does prohibit granting a license to anyone whose license has been suspended in another state.
   Alavez doesn’t sound like a man of means, but with the help of support groups for illegal immigrants, he took his case to the highest court in Maryland, the Court of Appeals.  The majority there just ruled on January 9, that the DMV was correct to deny a license to Alavez, not because he was an illegal immigrant, but because his license was suspended in another state.
   It was six years ago that I was invited to meet with a group of state legislators from around the country, on the subject of drivers licenses.  Keep in mind the reciprocal rule, that anyone who has a license from one state could go to any other and get a new license there. 
   That made the entire process of issuing drivers licenses as weak as the laws of the weakest state.  That’s why all of the 9/11 highjackers were carrying multiple licenses from many states.  I told those state legislators that either they would work with each other to establish minimum standards for proof of citizenship, or Congress would set a standard and compel the states to follow.
   The states did not act together.  Congress has forced the issue, and the Homeland Security Department has just issued the final regulations for all states to adopt those minimum standards.
   What is the importance of all this?
   Our northern and southern borders are still as porous as Swiss cheese.  We don’t have a big problem with Canadians sneaking across the border because their standard of living is about the same as ours.  But we have a huge problem with Mexicans because the U.S. has become the ad hoc welfare department for Mexico (and a hundred other nations).
   This presents a related set of problems: higher costs for education, welfare, hospitals, police departments, prisons, plus the dangers from drug dealers and terrorists, plus the problem of foreigners voting in American elections.  All of these problems are made worse by the issuance of drivers licenses to illegal aliens. 
   These points are all obvious, but not obvious enough for the Governor of New York, the California legislature (and several others), plus some pathetic positions on this issue taken by certain Democrat and Republican candidates for President.
        It ought to be obvious that American elections, hospitals, schools and the like are paid for by American taxpayers for the benefit of American citizens.  The idea that any aliens who sneak across the border are entitled to the same things simply because they’ve got a bad deal in whatever third-world nation they come from, will bankrupt local, state and national governments in the US, as well as challenge the integrity of our elections.
   The answer to the question in the title is that we DO “need steenkin’ licenses.”  To vote, to drive, to board an airplane, we need to restrict licenses to actual, live, American citizens.  Anyone who thinks otherwise is participating in the piecemeal destruction of America.
   People who hold public office, or who aspire to public office, have as their first duty the preservation of the United States of America.  Those who do not understand this, should be driven out of public life as quickly as humanly possible.