I wasn't commenting on their legal status, but on the public perception of them - and on their job description and abilities. For obvious reasons considering how they've been scaled up and how they've been acting in the past year, ICE have nowhere near the level of legitimacy and respect that the police or other federal agencies have, nor are they well suited in terms of training and experience to deal with the protesters that they are increasingly encountering.

This lack of legitimacy is now becoming a problem even with the FBI, in that case not because of anything the agents did but because of the blatantly incompetent conspiracy theorist bootlicker Trump put in charge of it - look at the whole fuss about the FBI taking over the investigation into this incident, because people now assume the FBI will just reach whatever conclusion most suits the president's agenda.

If you think the country is still comparable in terms of tension and potential for violence as it was in that half century, I think that's rather optimistic to put it mildly. And Roe v Wade was controversial enough at the time, but nothing compared to what a new reversal at the federal level now would be, after all those decades of escalating culture war and coming so soon after the pro-life movement finally got its victory. But ok, it's a weird hypothetical that I can't see actually happening and the point wasn't really about abortion, so maybe this is more confusing the issue than clarifying anything.

The point still remains that it's funny for conservatives, usually so much in favour of restricting the federal government's power and preserving the states' rights to follow their own paths, to be in all in favour of the federal government running roughshod over local and state objections the minute it happens to be run by their guy. Obviously the reverse is also true, liberals now being all about states' rights.