A statement by the president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, that Mexicans in America do the work that blacks are unwilling to do sparked fierce emotions from local black and immigrant leaders yesterday.

“President Fox should issue an unequivocal apology,” a 2004 presidential candidate, the Reverend Alford Sharpton, said at a press conference at the Mexican consulate in New York. “The words he used confirm the stereotype that blacks are the lowest peons in the workforce of this country.”

[Mr. Fox reversed course last night, apologizing for making the statement, according to the Associated Press.]

The executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, Margie McHugh, said Mr. Fox’s comment “ironically, implies support for a system that exploits both blacks and Mexicans.” She called on Mr. Fox “to clearly and unequivocally retract his remark.”

A Chicago-based African-American leader, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, also said that Mr. Fox should apologize and that, even if they were unintentional, his comments were disrespectful and inflammatory.

The Mexican president’s comment came Friday, during a meeting in Puerto Vallarta.

“There’s no doubt that Mexican men and women – full of dignity, willpower, and a capacity for work – are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States,” he said.

Despite widespread criticism, including a rebuff from the State Department, Mr. Fox said yesterday he would not retract the statement. He said his intention, to defend immigrants crossing illegally into America, had been misunderstood.

The statement came after Congress passed legislation barring illegal immigrants from receiving driver’s licenses in America and giving the director of the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented power to complete a fence on the southwest border. Mr. Fox has been very critical of these provisions, while encouraging a comprehensive immigration measure introduced separately last week.

The purpose of Mr. Fox’s comment “was none other than to show the importance Mexican workers have today in the development and progress of U.S. society,” a spokesman for Mr. Fox, Ruben Aguilar, told the Associated Press in Mexico yesterday. He refused to elaborate, adding only that Mr. Fox would “intensify his diplomatic efforts to protect the integrity of the Mexicans living in the country.”

A Mexican leader in Manhattan, Teresa Garcia of the advocacy group Asociacion Tepeyac, said the U.S.-educated Mr. Fox did not have the cultural sensitivity that comes with living in America.

Also calling on him to apologize, Ms. Garcia said she was fearful his remarks would incite conflict between Mexicans and African-Americans. Ms. Garcia said she had already received a fearful call yesterday from a Mexican immigrant who had been at the consulate when it was barraged by journalists covering Rev. Sharpton’s appearance there.

“He was very afraid,” she said of the immigrant. “He was afraid there are going to be conflicts or some sort of problems between Mexican and African-American immigrants.”