Ronald Reagan’s “Time for Choosing” and Today’s Battle Over ICE and CBP

Reagan’s Cold War warning offers clarity in today’s ideological conflict over borders and enforcement

Feb 12, 2026

Federal law enforcement officers serving the United States of America for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are being vilified for carrying out their charter. They are taking fire in an ideological battle over policy settled for more than two centuries. Federal overreach may be rampant in many government ventures, but border and immigration enforcement remain legitimate federal responsibilities, even among many libertarians.

It is time for us to show our support!

Young students are violating school rules, leaving their classrooms in organized ‘Abolish ICE’ walkouts. Their civics education was obviously not effective, or they would know that all of America’s adversaries, who are funding so much of this revolutionary anti-American activity, are famous for being deadly serious about their own borders.

A time for choosing

In October of 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered the famous speech “A Time for Choosing” in support of presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater. At the time, Reagan had not yet been elected governor of California. He hadn’t even been a candidate. That’s one of the factors that is so striking about the speech, that this former actor and guild leader would share words that are so relevant that they stir hearts today. Goldwater lost and Lyndon Johnson won, but few, if any, remember any of their addresses. These words from Reagan still echo from beyond with truth and relevance today.

We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in doing so lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. (Ronald Reagan)

Communism was the issue of the day in 1964. Sadly, it still is today nearly 62 years later. Billions were enslaved behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe and too much of Asia. This includes the continually enslaved nations of North Korea and the People’s Republic of China. We had no awareness in real time of the atrocities and mass murder of millions under Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution from 1966-1976. The Red Guards who eliminated the Four Olds and the people who held tradition were killed or re-educated, a fate that the Red Guards also faced when they became uncomfortably powerful by threating Mao’s dominance over China.

In his speech, Reagan recounted a story of American businessmen speaking to a Cuban refugee.

And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are! I had someplace to escape to.” In that sentence he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. (Ronald Reagan)

The goal of today’s protesters is undermining the United States and its legitimacy. Many are duped and don’t know it, but it is the truth. It is cloaked in counterfeit acts of love and compassion. The words ‘love’ and ‘hate’ have been weaponized creating the illusion of a binary that doesn’t exist in the secular. In the sacred, love and hate are absolute polar extremes but, in the secular, they are degrees in an ungrounded and adrift continuum.

Indoctrinating citizens of a foreign power to de-legitimize the authority of their own government and their borders, by the extremely privileged manipulated into believing they are the disenfranchised, is always the Marxist master plan. It is not a new idea. Rhetoric in a 2026 Grammy award acceptance speech ‘No one is illegal on stolen land’ repeated so frequently, despite the logic flaws of that statement, has fabricated civil unrest in many areas and especially in Minnesota against CBP agents and ICE agents.

You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down--up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order--or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. (Ronald Reagan)

No one on the right or left in 1964 would believe that sixty years later, three out of five items most Americans touch every day would bear the imprint ‘Made in China.’

Rebellion funded by dark left money

Generations of American youth with tax-funded educations have been deprived of instruction on the competition between free-market and collectivist societies. They are easily captured by an atheist utopian vision. Today, our uneducated graduates are on the streets marching with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The PSL produces printed signs so quickly it sometimes seems like they have a Kinkos inside a U-Haul.

Defend the 612, funded by left-leaning organizations such as Arabella Advisors via the Hopewell Fund, trains Minneapolis residents to create perilous situations with ICE agents. Reagan’s words remind us that this is nothing new.

We have so many people who can’t see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one. So they are going to solve all the problems of human misery through government and government planning.

Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer and they’ve had almost 30 years of it, shouldn’t we expect government to almost read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help? The reduction in the need for public housing? (Ronald Reagan)

Christina Buttons reports in City Journal:

Members repeatedly referenced the “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” an activist handbook that members used to generate ways to impede ICE. Members discussed throwing urine at agents, praising one such incident as “mvp” behavior. A daily update account called “The Report Card” encouraged participants to “annoy” agents with constant noise. They view “noise making and interrupting their meals and bathroom breaks” as essential, noting these tactics “serve a critical role in draining their morale.”

Make the pledge and share broadly

Our CBP and ICE officers deserve our support as they enforce the laws enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States.

I chose to publicly affirm my support for both ICE and CBP, and all legitimate law enforcement, federal, state, county, tribal, local, via the pledge for ICE on Support our Shields. Your information will remain secure. This is to deliver a number, not a list. We are going to deliver a message to everyone in the Department of Homeland Security that there is a great body of support for the individual officers and their families.

This is why today is a time for choosing as Ronald Reagan voice echoes as it has for 62 years, calling us back to the fundamental charge of the founders in the United States Constitution.

Policing influencer Hollywood Morris has sacrificed to ensure that dedicated law enforcement officers who are killed in service have an enduring emblem of recognition for future generations. His organization, Support our Shields, quite appropriately, is the host of this effort to create a dialogue about the truth of the role of ICE in the service of our nation. Morris states:

“This petition isn’t about politics—it’s about moral clarity. When the men and women enforcing our laws are demonized, ignored, or left unprotected, the rule of law collapses. Standing with ICE is standing with order, truth, and the safety of every community in this country.
This stand with ICE is personal—it’s about refusing to stay silent while those sworn to protect the public are turned into political targets.”

Join the movement to support CBP and ICE as they hunt the worst of the worst criminals who only endanger our citizens within our borders. The request is simple:

Affirm that they are legitimate federal law enforcement officers chartered to enforce the laws enacted by the United States Congress.
Agree that every United States citizen with the courage to bear the badge should not be targeted, harassed and annoyed by organized mobs throwing human waste while they practice constitutional activity. Also, that you support legislation penalizing Bounties on Badges (HR 7114).

Click this image to make the pledge.

Click image for pledge link. Image generated with Canva.

Please keep all first responders and their families in your prayers.

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