From the AP's "Governor apologizes for border comment, Hispanic leaders accept":

...Schwarzenegger said he misspoke in comments to newspaper editors and publishers Tuesday, intending to say the border should be secured. The governor blamed the error on his sometimes flawed use of English - his second language.

"Yesterday was a total screw-up in the words I used," the governor said at a press conference. "Because instead of closing, I meant securing. I think maybe my English, I need to go back to school and study a little bit..."

Everyone except those who want to deliberately misunderstand what he said already knew what he meant. Whether he referred to his latest statements as an apology or whether the AP is just calling it that is unclear. In any case, it's more of a clarification and not an apology. And, his aide already had made it clear yesterday what he meant.

Despite accepting Arnold's apology, Fabian Nunez still seems to want to make this an issue. And:

Nunez said the border-closing remark drew hundreds of e-mails to his office from "very, very racist people from across the state."

Of course, what Nunez considers racist is probably quite different from an objective definition of that term. See the previous post for more about him.

The article also includes a quote from the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; see the link for more about them.

And, pre-"apology", a CBS affiliate got additional responses:

Jose Sandoval, a San Jose-based spokesman for immigrant advocacy group Voluntarios de la Comunidad, said today he was offended by the governor's remarks Tuesday...

"The governor is wrong because he's also an immigrant. If he's going to close the borders, he's going to have a lot of problems for him and the state,'' Sandoval said in Spanish through a translator.

The SJ Merc recently published a profile of Sandoval: "Unlikely activist a lifeline for immigrants". He has a green card but he supports driver's licenses for illegal immigrants. The article describes two instances of him driving in what I would consider an extremely unsafe manner, such as driving from L.A. to S.J. on the extraordinarily monotonous 5 freeway on just two hours sleep. And, "he sees no difference between legal and illegal immigrants".

The CBS affiliate also includes the thoughts of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

UPDATE: Here's Arnold's statement from the transcript:

"First of all, I was very happy that some of you took our corrections seriously. And the bottom line is I misspoke, and I'm sorry if that offended anyone. But it was a language problem, because I meant "securing our borders" rather than "closing our borders." Because, of course, we don't want to close the borders, because I think that we have a terrific relationship with Mexico. I have done myself four movies in Mexico. I love to go on vacation to Mexico. I think that we have a great trade agreement with Mexico, we are good friends. I did not mean "close," I meant "secure" our borders, that's what I mean."

Let's call it an apology and let the linguists argue over whether it is indeed such.

See also this: "Speaker: 'Perhaps I misspoke'".