TOMBSTONE, Ariz. - They came by the hundreds Friday, men and women from across the United States, hearts brimming with righteous anger, determined to staunch the flow of illegal immigration.

Some wore pistols slung low on their hips. Others walked the dusty streets in leather cowboy hats, wearing buttons that read: "Undocumented Border Patrol Agent."There were pilots, window washers, private investigators and exterminators.

These are the new Minutemen. And for the next month, they will be patrolling 23 miles of desert here in southeast Arizona, the biggest corridor for illegal immigrants in the nation with nearly 500,000 arrests made last year.

"We have an illegal invasion of our country going on now that is affecting our schools, our healthcare system and our society in general,"said Joe McCutchen, a 73-year-old volunteer from Fort Smith, Ark. "No society can sustain this."

The Minutemen's presence here has set off protests from immigrant-rights groups and drew a handful of counter-demonstrators Friday. The Mexican government has increased its troop strength along the border, and President Vincente Fox has called on the American government to protect illegal immigrants coming across the desert.

President Bush outraged the volunteers here by calling them "vigilantes." They responded by calling Bush the "co-president" of Mexico and a leader who has failed his chief responsibility, securing the country's borders.

At a rally Friday in an airy building not far from the infamous OK Corral, where the Earps and Clantons shot it out in 1881, politicians and activists lambasted Bush and vowed not to be intimidated.

"Since when did actually enforcing the laws of the land become a radical idea?" asked Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado, a leading supporter of tougher immigration measures. "If you don't know who is coming across your borders and for what purpose, then you cannot call yourself a nation."

The 200 or so Minuteman volunteers roared their approval, with a few shouting: "Tancredo for president!"

Conservative political pundit Bay Buchanan chipped in with a scathing attack on Bush.

"Mr. President, you have failed us, you have failed our children, you have failed those communities suffering from drugs coming across the border," she said. "Mr. President, you have failed America!"

Outside the hall, demonstrators pounded pots and pans with spoons, trying to drown out the rally. There were dancers in traditional Aztec feather costumes carrying signs calling the Minutemen racists. Monitors in red and white shirts from the American Civil Liberties Union have organized themselves into groups that will follow the civilian patrols that officially begin tomorrow.

"We will stay about 50 to 100 yards behind them to deter the use of violence and document any illegal activity," said Ray Ybarra of the Arizona ACLU.

The number of Minutemen who assembled here Friday was not as great as had been expected. James Gilchrist, the Southern California activist who organized the event, had predicted at least 1,000 would show up.

"They will be coming throughout the month, and not all on the first day," he said.

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