"We have moved here to clean up the problems that illegal immigrants are causing, " said Peter Lanteri, director of the New York Minutemen chapter. "We are tired of people coming over here with visas and overstaying them. There are hundreds of thousands of people getting into the US legally and for people to skip the line is just not acceptable."

An estimated 50,000 undocumented Irish people are living and working illegally in the US. The Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform (ILIR) was set up last December to campaign to have their status legalised, along with the hundreds of thousands of other illegal immigrants in the US.

According to Lanteri, this campaign has caused the membership of the Minutemen to "rocket" in recent months. "Every time they march, more and more people are joining up to help us outf 75 per cent of our members are former military men or law enforcement and they're just not happy seeing these illegal aliens marching through the streets looking for rights."

The Minutemen Project Civil Defence Corps was set up by a group of private US citizens to monitor the Mexican border.

Recently, it has expanded to control the Canadian border. Just last Wednesday, nine Irish people were charged with taking part in an illegal smuggling ring operating across the Canadian border.

"Irish people have to realise they can't be doing that kind of thing, " said Lanteri.

"We know of large numbers of illegals living in Montauk and the Hamptons and we are acting on information local people are sending us. Once we have all the evidence we need, we'll pass it on to Homeland Security."

Lanteri insisted the Minutemen were not against immigration, but would continue to fight against illegal immigrants of all nationalities.

"We're not against any one country, " he said. "I'm Italian and if I caught 20 illegal Italian immigrants, I'd hand them over too.

This is about protecting our country and our economy from the huge numbers of people who think they can come here illegally and get away with it."