Bob Miller for NBC News

Maria Cruz Ramirez, one of several undocumented immigrants traveling across the country on the "undocubus," protests during a briefing on the civil rights effects of state immigrations law held by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights in Birmingham, Ala., on August 17, 2012.

Birmingham, Ala. -- Maria Cruz Ramirez thrust up a small banner reading “undocumented,” interrupting a hearing on strict state immigration laws to share the impact that the legislation has had on her life.

“I am here to lift up the voice of my community, of my children, all those families who have been separated. I am here and I want to present this so you can see it,” Ramirez, 46, cried out in Spanish as she held up the sign at the meeting in Birmingham. “I am a mother, a responsible mother … I am not a criminal and I am here to defend my rights.”

A mother of three and former owner of a hair salon in Mexico, Ramirez, who lives in Arizona, never thought she would end up here, as an immigration activist, possibly jeopardizing her life in the U.S. But after 11 years in this country, she decided to throw herself into the public spotlight as Arizona’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants threatened her family.

“I’m fighting for them and for everyone else, for my community, for the mothers who don’t want to or can’t or don’t know how to support their children,” she said. “I want to represent all of those mothers and all of those young people.”

As a minibus shuttled her and other undocumented immigrants on a nighttime ride last week through the South, a touring protest called the “undocubus,” Ramirez recalled her family’s journey to the U.S.

They came here like many others, seeking better opportunities. She wanted her children to go to good schools and learn two languages. Her husband, Eugenio Sanchez, said it would be a step up from their life back home. They entered the country on tourist visas, which they overstayed, Ramirez said.

But as her two oldest children, Hugo, now 24, and Alina, 19, graduated from high school in Phoenix and tried to move on to college and jobs, their legal status was put in sharp relief. Neither can get steady work and they have had to curtail their studies since a 2006 Arizona law made them ineligible for in-state tuition, meaning higher education is prohibitively expensive.

Ramirez can’t get a stable job, either, since she is undocumented, leaving it up to her husband, who fixes cars, to be the sole provider. But due to the passage of another state law, the controversial SB1070 -- under which authorities must determine immigration status during a lawful stop -- the family has heightened fears, with Eugenio Sanchez opting to hide out one night when authorities suddenly showed up in the area where he works.

“That's the first thing that happened to me with the new laws,” Ramirez said of the scare for her husband, though he returned home the next day without incident. “Day by day, I’ve been scared for my children because they drive. So, I say, ‘What is going to happen if tomorrow one of them gets stopped and I’m not going to see them? Or maybe, they’ll detain me while I'm on the street, what’s going to happen to them?’ It's gotten me to think, ‘What am I doing here? Should I go? Should I stay?’ It’s something that you can’t prevent, what may happen.”

The family has had hard discussions about the situation they find themselves in. Tears were shed over the frustration.

Courtesy of Alina Sanchez

The Sanchez family at Alina's graduation from high school in May 2011. From left to right: Rocio, father Eugenio, Alina, mother Maria Cruz Ramirez, Hugo.

“We would find ... a wall between us, between everything we wanted and between what we could have ... in Mexico,” Alina said, noting that her mom asked many times if they wanted to return to their home country.

Ramirez said her son, Hugo, at one point questioned why they even came.

“He told me, ‘See, why did you bring us here? It’s your fault for bringing us here because we came here without a permit,’” she said, at times wiping away tears. “And I told him, ‘The truth is, it’s true. As a mother, it’s my fault because I was thinking for you and deciding for you, and I think instead of doing good, I did bad for you.’ Because, maybe over there, we would be poor but they would have more.”

Hugo, who is proud of his mom's activism, didn’t recall this specific conversation, but Alina said: "Maybe we did blame her and it's understandable but it's ... not her fault.

"I see where she is coming from and I know she was doing something better for us because she wants us to be better people,” she added.

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Ramirez began volunteering 18 months ago with a group of youth like her own children, who could be eligible for the Dream Act -- immigration reform legislation that has stalled in Congress. But the trigger to stepping up her activism, and putting herself in the spotlight, happened after she saw Hugo and her 17-year-old daughter, Rocio, get arrested while protesting earlier this year on a Phoenix street against Arizona’s immigration restrictions.

“They stood up for themselves and fought for their own rights and dignity,” she said.

When she heard about the bus full of undocumented immigrants heading across the U.S. as a form of visible protest, she said, “My heart jumped and I said, ‘This is my chance.’”

“From the first moment, I thought that it was going to be an impossible dream, even being on the bus, I started asking myself, ‘What I am going to do? What am I doing?’ But now that I feel more part of the group and I participated in different things, I've liked it,” she said.

So far, the bus has wound through Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama on its way to North Carolina for the Democratic National Convention, which begins Sept. 4.

“I armed myself with bravery,” Ramirez said. “I’m not scared anymore because I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m defending my rights as a person, as a human being, and I think if they take away my liberty for a couple of days, I give them up happily.”

Ramirez got legal advice before she left on the trip. She was told that if arrested, she would be low priority for deportation since she hadn’t, for example, committed a crime. But she also learned she didn’t have anything that would help her case, either, such as a relative who is a U.S. citizen, and that ultimately a decision on deportation would be a matter of prosecutorial discretion.

Bob Miller / for NBC News

Maria Huerta, Maria Cruz Ramirez and Gerardo Torres, who are all undocumented, enter a civil rights hearing on the impact of state immigration laws held in Birmingham, Ala., on Aug. 17, 2012.

Her children, however, may stand to benefit from a new federal initiative known as the “deferred action” program, under which certain young immigrants in the country without documents can get a two-year work permit and a reprieve from deportation. But it won’t help the parents of those who qualify, which is hard, Alina said.

“It’s sad to think about ... them not having papers,” she said, also noting how proud she was of her mom. “She’s doing it for us so I am so grateful … . Even though we miss her a lot, we know she is doing something good."

On the road, Ramirez has heard from opposing voices. One of those at the Birmingham hearing, Carol Swain, a professor of politics and law at Vanderbilt University, said the group had not chosen the right venues for their protest.

“Take your protest to Congress and sit outside their doors,” Swain, a self-described conservative, said later by phone. She added that she thought “the average citizen doesn’t understand how someone can be in the country, you know, undocumented or illegal and then they’re making demands and flaunting the fact that they don’t have papers. But when I listen to the people (the undocubus group), I see their sincerity, that they really do believe that they’re entitled ... to be legal and to have all the benefits of American citizens."

"I think we’re sort of speaking past each other," she added, "and I think they’re taking their protest to the wrong party.”

Such a critique is not likely to dissuade Ramirez, who said the bus protest has given her strength and taught her a lot.

“I ask myself every day, ‘What a turn my life made, a total turn,’” she said. “I think it was my time to live. It was my time to give to someone else.”

NBC News' Natalia Jimenez contributed to this this report.

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AP file

Friends and relatives of Sergio Hernandez Guereca, 15, carry his coffin before his burial in the northern border city of Juarez, Mexico, June 10, 2010.

The federal government will not pursue charges against a U.S. border patrol agent who shot and killed a 15-year-old Mexican national two years ago, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The shooting of Sergio Hernandez Guereca took place in a spillway of the Rio Grande along the border on June 7, 2010, as the agent was dodging rocks thrown at him while he was trying to detain a suspected smuggler.

The death of Hernandez Guereca, who was on the Mexico side of the border when he was shot, sparked protest from rights groups and the family filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government.

The Mexican government condemned the shooting and called for a swift response. Mexican President Felipe Calderon called on Washington "to investigate fully what happened and punish those responsible."

Investigators say they interviewed more than 25 witnesses, analyzed videos, listened to 911 recordings and law enforcement radio traffic, reviewed border patrol agent training and use-of-force materials, and reviewed the officer's history.

'Reasonable use of force'
They concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the Customs and Border Patrol agent for homicide. The agent has never been identified.

Instead, a Justice Department statement says, what they found indicated "that the agent's actions constituted a reasonable use of force or would constitute an act of self-defense in response to the threat created by a group of smugglers hurling rocks at the agent and his detainee."

They also lacked evidence to prove that "the CBP agent acted willfully and with the deliberate and specific intent to do something the law forbids," which would be required to prove a civil rights violation. The Justice Department said that an "accident, mistake, misperception, negligence and bad judgment are not sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation."

"The U.S. government regrets the loss of life in this matter," the Justice Department said.

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SAN ANTONIO, Texas - A proposed mural of a sleeping, sombrero-topped Mexican man has created a cultural minefield in South Texas, where supporters say it's a tribute to a classic image and opponents say it's offensive.

The image of a man sleeping with his back against a wall, knees against his chest and hat covering his face, has been floated as part of a proposed mural honoring San Antonio's first drive-in theater.

"Latinos are not asleep. We are on the march," said Gabriel Velasquez, a former member of the city's arts advisory board who was removed after pointing out the images earlier this week. "We must be portrayed as awake and active and leaders, not as being asleep at noon every day."

The effort in one of the state's largest cities, which is more than 60 percent Hispanic, demonstrates a growing clash in the United States between efforts to preserve and record history and the fight against honoring racist imagery.

In San Antonio, the issue has degenerated into allegations of racism and cultural insensitivity over the images, which appeared on the wall of the theater when it was built in 1947.

"You have got to be kidding me," prominent San Antonio artist Jesse Trevino said when he was invited to submit a bid to help create the mural. "I have been fighting this all my life by trying my best to portray the positive images of Mexican Americans."

Also on the walls of the original Mission Drive-In Theater was an image of a Mexican man wearing a sombrero and leading a burro, which some artists say is outdated and should also be ignored.

"Mexican-American children around here have never seen a burro," Velasquez said. "They don't know what a burro is."

At a protest Monday, Trevino said the images might have been acceptable back when the mural was painted, but to recreate it would not depict the community today, NBC station WOAI reported.

“It presents a negative image and stigma of the South Side community,” T.C. Calvert, who opposes recreation of the mural told WOAI.

City officials sent out the photograph of the original theater in its request for artist proposals, but say they haven't decided or directed anyone to paint the "Sleeping Mexican" or the burro into the mural.

They say they are trying to balance a 21st century sensibility with the need for historic preservation and an accurate portrayal of historically valuable images.

But they stress that the photograph distributed to artists is only an example, and the final mural won't include those two images if the public doesn't want them.

"We are not articulating what actual components of the mural need to be applied," said Felix Padron, the city's Director of Arts and Cultural Affairs. "We will engage the community in a dialogue to see what would be appropriate to apply as to the content of the mural."

The two images were removed from the building in the 1960s, around the time the Raza Chicano movement began to build steam and protest the negative portrayal of Mexican Americans.

Padron said the image released by the city of the original theater, which was torn down in 2008, included the two images because the city wanted to hire artists who could recreate the art deco feel and color of the original theater.

The mission was a landmark for decades on the almost entirely Hispanic south side of this city, which was once the capital of the Mexican province of Tejas y Coahuila and still prominently touts its Mexican culture and history in tourism promotions.

The struggle to balance history with modern day sensitivities is an increasingly difficult one, says Lisa Wade, a professor of sociology at Occidental University in California and an expert on the evolution of images.

Once a common sight on roadside souvenir stands
The so-called "Sleeping Mexican" image was created for 1940s era travel brochures and billboards, to promote a then-sparsely populated southwestern United States which included ethnic groups and cultures that were foreign and exotic to many Americans.

It was a common sight on advertisements and roadside souvenir stands through the sixties until changing sensitivities in the 1970s raised awareness of its unflattering portrayal of Mexicans as being lazy.

The same issue arose recently on an episode of Hispanic comedian George Lopez' television show, in his neighbor had erected a "Sleeping Mexican" statue in his yard.

Wade says it's an issue America is dealing with more and more, from the discovery of long-forgotten "Whites only" drinking fountains in southern buildings to advertising that was commonplace in the days of "Mad Men," but is offensive today.

"Even if the images themselves seem historical, the stereotype that Mexicans are lazy is still a very strong stereotype in the United States," Wade said. "It in fact contributes to the idea that they don't work hard as immigrants."

This report from Reuters includes information from NBC station WOAI of San Antonio.

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