I have been thinking lately of a bunch of nutcases in Arizona, organized groups of gun-toting, Confederate-flag-waving hunters of Mexican flesh.

These are groups with names like Ranch Rescue, the American Border Patrol (ABP, not to be confused with the federal U.S. Border Patrol), Civil Homeland Defense, and the latest on the scene, The Minuteman Project.

This isn't new. These let's-hunt-us-some-Mexicans groups have been doing this sort of vigilantism for years. For years, migrant workers have had to face Americans of questionable character and motives who have detained them, at gunpoint, flashing fake law enforcement badges in their faces, and dressed in their combat fatigues.

I suppose some American men never grow up and have to keep playing soldier.

Chris Simcox, originator of the group Civil Homeland Defense, has been quoted as saying: "American citizens, under the Second Amendment to the Constitution, have the right to bear arms and to form a militia ... and I dare the President of the United States to do anything about it."

Lovely fellow there, wouldn't you say?

Some of these modern-day cowboys admit to "roughing up" the migrants they detain before sending them back over the border or turning them over to the border patrol.

Here is how these thugs describe your maids and farm workers who cross the border to do the work that Americans will not do. They call them drug smugglers, criminal gang members, bandits, thugs and international terrorists.

All righty.

Founder of the American Border Patrol, Glenn Spencer, calls his outfit a "think tank and neighborhood watch." Other people see it differently. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks neo-Nazi organizations, calls ABP a "hate group." Spencer has worked closely with the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), one of the largest white-supremacist groups in the country. In 1998, Spencer went to Cullman, Ala., to attend a CCC-organized protest against the growing population of Mexican workers. He also has advertised his anti-immigrant videotape Bonds of Our Nation in the CCC newspaper, the Citizen Informer.

Spencer and his ilk actually believe that migrant workers are not coming to America to find a better life for themselves and their families, but rather to reclaim the Southwest for Mexico.

Groups who work on behalf of migrant or immigrant workers, such as MECHA, La Raza Unida, and the Coalicin de Derechos Humanos of Tucson, Az., he regards as "de facto agents of Mexico." This Is Your Border Patrol.

Here is the problem:

Some Americans will cling to their insane racism. There is another sector of Americans including, ironically, some of the first group who are hiring illegals. Therefore, what you have is one group of Americans (the Mexican hunters) opposed to another group of Americans (those who hire them), with the migrant workers caught in the crossfire.

Instead of going after the Americans who hire the illegal workers, this soldier-of-fortune crowd is out to hunt themselves some Mexicans.

The thing I want to know is, if this newest group, the Minuteman Project, is there simply to "observe and report," then why do they need guns strapped to every hip and a Confederate flag in every hand? I am not making this up. The Web site Minutemanproject.com offers photos of the April 2 rallies near Tombstone, Az., in which gun-toting vigilantes, armed to the teeth, sport camouflage outfits and carry Confederate flags

(http://www.minutemanproject.com/photos/photos_2005apr02_rallies.html).

It leaves you wondering: Exactly what is being defended? On behalf of whom? Are these men really the true defenders of a border poorly guarded by the government, or are they pathetic would-be soldiers of fortune, nostalgic for a frontier America ruled by force and color caste?

While they keep their eyes on our borders, we had better keep our eyes on them.