New Mexico ranchers defend family’s heritage against unwanted trespassers

Imagine lush, rolling hills and green pine trees beneath a clear, blue sky, with a wide river running through it. You can see animals grazing as you stroll, and the best part of this magnificent sanctuary is it’s yours. Having been in your family for generations, this land is more than just a scenic backdrop; it’s a family heirloom.

The sentimental value the property holds makes it all the more disheartening when trespassers barge onto your land and haul fish out of the river.

And the worst part—these trespassers have the law on their side, making it seem nearly impossible to safeguard your land against unwanted visitors.

This is what has been happening to Lucía and Miguel Sánchez, who fear that the Mexico Department of Game and Fish has turned their 80-acre ranch into a public fish pond, thanks to a court ruling that strips the Sánchezes of their right to exclude.

A part of the family

Lucía and Miguel’s great-grandparents bought the lush land in 1942, and it has stayed in the Sánchez family ever since. The Sánchez siblings have used it to cultivate cattle and, on a deeper level, connect with their heritage.

“A lot of the grazing techniques and land management techniques that we use on the land are tied to our language,” Lucía said. “My brother and I are both fluent in Spanish, and so there are words and terms that we use when we’re irrigating or cutting wood that we wouldn’t use in any other context. And to take us away from the land would take us away from that big part of our culture, and what we call our herencia, our inheritance.”

“It’s a systems approach to how we’ve maintained our culture and our identity,” she added.

In 2022, the New Mexico Supreme Court upended years of property rights law in Adobe Whitewater Club of N.M. v. N.M. State Game Comm’n, ruling that the state constitution protects the public’s right to walk or wade on private streambeds.

The court said that the New Mexico Constitution’s public trust doctrine guarantees a public right for recreation in public waters but extends that right so that the public can use anyone’s stream for fishing. This runs contrary to the previous, longstanding law that said property owners can own the non-navigable water on their land and as such, have the right to exclude whomever they see fit—a right that was affirmed in a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case.

In Pacific Legal Foundation’s case Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, the Supreme Court affirmed that the government cannot force private property owners to grant public access to their land without just compensation, in accordance with the Fifth Amendment’s Taking Clause.

Yet, since the Court’s decision, the New Mexico Attorney General and other state agencies have continued to prosecute property owners for exercising their right to exclude people from their property. And Lucía and Miguel fear the repercussions they might face if they try to protect their own land from intruders.

New Mexico’s law violates the Supreme Court’s ruling. The law denies Lucía and Miguel their right to prevent strangers from fishing in their creek, and they can’t kick anybody out if they feel unsafe.

“People feel like they have an entitlement.” Lucía says. “I’ve had people come up to me, and say, ‘We were fishing in your place.’ And that’s like me saying, ‘I camped in your backyard last weekend, and you didn’t even know,’” she said.

“These trespassers, when they come on to fish, they’re doing a lot of other things, and they’re actually not respecting even the boundary between the stream beds and then the rest of the property, which is private,” she added.

The court’s decision has also had drastic implications for the property on a conservation level, with trespassers leaving behind garbage, which has infected the animals and polluted the land.

“All these people that talk about economic development and conservation, they don’t help ranchers and farmers fix vents; they don’t help them move cattle back into their areas,” Lucia said.

They leave their trash and barrels or trash cans where they can find them, and then they go home. A lot of them don’t know the native herbs, rock material, wood materials. They don’t know a lot of those things that we do, having been here. We’re the ones facing all these issues because we have a beautiful habitat and clean water.

The right to exclude

Lucía and Miguel are not the only New Mexicans that are fed up with this rule. They have joined with three others to challenge the state’s illegal taking of their right to exclude trespassers from their private, non-navigable waters. And they won’t have to do it alone. Pacific Legal Foundation will be fighting by their side.

Roland Rivera, Erik Briones, and Richard Jenkins all own property that includes portions of the non-navigable Pecos Rivr. Because of the state court’s decision in 2022, they have no say in who can use the river on their property either.

Whether it’s the government or individuals, nobody is allowed to trespass on another person’s property without the owner’s permission or, in the government’s case, just compensation.

Fortunately, other states, like South Dakota, have taken a stand. The South Dakota legislature passed the No Government Trespassing Act to address this issue three years ago after a state game warden stepped onto the property of James and Richard Meyer and demanded to see their hunting licenses.

The principle is that no one is above the law, and that includes the government. Property owners have the constitutional right to exclude trespassers from their land, and the government has a duty to protect that right.

Lucía, Miguel, and their fellow New Mexican plaintiffs are adamant about not allowing the government get away with revoking their property rights without some payback.

“Everybody has an opportunity in this free world to acquire almost anything on earth that you want, if you work hard enough and you go for it,” Lucía said.

“There’s plenty of properties for sale with streams in New Mexico. If people want a piece of the stream life, go buy it, earn it. Have something to pass on to your children, teach your kids something, but don’t impose yourself on mine.”