By Bella Davis, New Mexico In Depth
As reports come out across the country of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detaining Native Americans, a couple dozen New Mexico lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow tribal citizens to update their state-issued IDs to reflect their enrollment status.
House Bill 20 would give people enrolled in a federally recognized tribe the option to request a “distinguishing mark” identifying them as Native American on their driver’s license or other identification cards. A similar law passed in Arizona last year went into effect in January. On a sample license posted online by that state’s Motor Vehicle Division, “Native American” is written on the bottom left side of the card.
More than a third of the New Mexico House of Representatives’ 70 members, including three Republicans, are sponsoring the bill. The House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee passed it Wednesday after an hour of debate, sending it to the full chamber.
“This bill stems from our constituents reaching out to us,” Rep. Michelle Paulene Abeyta (Diné), a Democrat from To’hajiilee, said during a House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee hearing last week.
If enacted, it wouldn’t go into effect until October. That’s how long it would take the MVD to update its system, Director Htet Wint told lawmakers.
Registered lobbyists for several tribes spoke in support of the bill.
The designation “will show that the license holder is indeed a registered member of a federally recognized tribe and thus a U.S. citizen,” Conroy Chino, a lobbyist for Acoma and Taos Pueblos, said during last week’s hearing. “This might be a good time for this new designation, especially at a time when federal ICE agents are wrongfully detaining people using racial profiling.”
Last month, for instance, a Diné man named Peter Yazzie reported he was parked outside a convenience store in Arizona when he was confronted by ICE agents and detained despite telling them where they could find his birth certificate and other documents. He was held in a cell for several hours before being released, he told a local TV station. The Navajo Nation set up a tipline for tribal citizens in January 2025.
But during committee discussions of the bill, some lawmakers raised concerns about the idea of a distinguishing mark.
“Just historically, when we identify, if I identify myself a certain way, or anybody does, I think that could be weaponized,” Rep. Tara Lujan, D-Santa Fe, said Wednesday.
Rep. Martin Zamora, R-Clovis, made similar comments.
“What if the federal government was telling your people you’re going to carry a different ID? It seems to me like there’d be some backlash and pushback on that, because they’d be singling you out,” Zamora said. “If my people of Mexican origin were told, everybody else carries this ID, but you’re going to carry something different, I wouldn’t like that, and I don’t think that that would be treating my people well.”
Bill sponsors emphasized that the optional designation is about tribal citizens’ political status, not race.
“The intent is not necessarily to single out Native Americans,” said Rep. William Hall, a Republican who represents part of San Juan County, which has a significant Native population. Because federally recognized tribes are sovereign nations, enrolled members are citizens of both their tribal nations and the U.S., established by the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act. “That’s what we’re recognizing,” Hall said.
There are additional reasons the designation might be useful, sponsors argued.
“The unique political status has caused, in some instances, barriers to justice for us,” Abeyta said.
She pointed to the Turquoise Alert for missing Native people created last year.
Under that statute, which Abeyta co-sponsored, law enforcement have to establish a missing person is enrolled or eligible for enrollment in a federally or state recognized tribe. Advocates said the requirement could potentially slow down investigations, as New Mexico In Depth reported last summer.
“If they opted into this, they would have provided their documentation and it would have already been a designation, getting that alert out quicker,” Abeyta said.
The distinguishing mark would not specify which tribal nation the ID-holder is a citizen of or include personal information submitted in an application for the mark. Applications, the bill reads, shall include: an enhanced tribal card; a tribal identification card; a tribal certificate of Indian blood; or a tribal or bureau of Indian affairs affidavit of birth.
The intention is for one of those four items to be required in an application, Abeyta said. But Lujan said the bill reads to her as though applicants must provide all of the first three items or the fourth item alone.
“You need some clarifying language here,” Lujan said.
House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee Chair D. Wonda Johnson (Diné), D-Rehoboth, agreed, suggesting the bill be amended as it moves forward.
This story was originally published by New Mexico In Depth.
