An ad for Absolut Vodka that may have been intended as a good-natured jab on behalf of Mexicans at America’s contentious immigration debate has unleashed a firestorm of criticism that has led the company to apologize.

The ad, featuring a map of 19th-century North America when most of the western half of the continent was under Mexico’s control, was supposed to recall a “more ideal” time for Mexicans, thousands of whom now cross the American border each year in search of work. It ran only in Mexico.

Anti-illegal immigration groups suggested the vodka brand was tapping into a latent desire among Mexicans to “control the Southwest United States.”

The backlash against the ad prompted concern at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which recently labeled several of the groups involved in organizing the boycott as hate groups, including American Border Patrol in Arizona and Save Our State in California and New York.

“The pathetic reality is that it feeds the paranoid conspiracy theories of crazy nativists who actually think this is a plan,” the director of the Intelligence Project at the center, Mark Potok, said of the ad.

The ad came at a moment when an ongoing debate over how to overhaul the legal immigration system has reached a stalemate, even as the Bush administration has moved forward with a plan to increase security on the border. Many immigrant groups stayed out of the fray yesterday, however, as anti-illegal immigration activists stoked an anti-Absolut campaign on the Internet. They called on supporters to pour out bottles of Absolut and to call the company to complain.

One fan of Absolut’s advertising campaign who maintains a Web site, absolutad.com, temporarily removed contact information from the site because it had received an “overwhelming amount of hate mail.”

Absolut responded to the backlash on its own Web site.

“In no way was this meant to offend or disparage, nor does it advocate an altering of borders, nor does it lend support to any anti-American sentiment, nor does it reflect immigration issues,” a spokeswoman wrote. “Instead, it hearkens to a time which the population of Mexico may feel was more ideal.”