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Civics Reference
Who Handles What?
A plain-English guide to federal, tribal, state, county, and city government in New Mexico. Every cell links to an official source you can check yourself. Updated August 15, 2026.
| Everyday issue | Federal | Tribal Nations* | State of New Mexico | County | City / Town |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🌐 Immigration | Immigration is federal. USCIS handles visas, green cards, and citizenship; other federal agencies manage borders and enforcement. Verify → | U.S. immigration is federal, not tribal. Separately, each nation decides its own citizenship and membership — a different thing from immigration status. Verify → | The state doesn't decide who may enter or stay — that's federal. NM's Office of New Americans (Workforce Solutions) helps immigrant workers navigate state services. Verify → | Not a county job. NM counties focus on local services like property records, detention centers, and rural roads. Verify (counties assn.) → | Cities don't enforce or decide immigration cases. Some offer resident services — Albuquerque has an Office of Immigrant & Refugee Affairs. Verify (example) → |
| 🛡️ Police & safety | Federal agencies investigate federal crimes — in NM that includes the FBI's Albuquerque field office, plus federal law enforcement on federal lands and at the border. Verify → | Many nations run their own police; the BIA Office of Justice Services polices some communities. Authority in a specific case depends on where it happened, who was involved, and which law applies. Verify → | The New Mexico State Police (Department of Public Safety) patrols highways and enforces state law statewide. Verify → | Every county elects a sheriff; deputies mainly patrol outside city limits and serve court papers. Counties also run detention centers. Verify (example) → | City police handle most day-to-day calls inside city limits — APD is the state's largest department. Some small towns contract with the county sheriff instead. Verify (example) → |
| 🛣️ Roads | The Federal Highway Administration funds a large share of major highways, including New Mexico's interstates. The federal government pays; states do the work. Verify → | Roads on tribal lands are planned and maintained by tribal governments with the BIA's Division of Transportation, through the Tribal Transportation Program. State highways crossing tribal land are still NMDOT's. Verify → | NMDOT builds and maintains state highways and the interstates. Verify → | County public works maintains county roads — mostly outside city limits, including many rural and dirt roads. Verify (example) → | Cities maintain the streets inside their limits — in Albuquerque, the Department of Municipal Development handles streets, signals, and storm drains. Verify (example) → |
| 🗳️ Elections | No federal agency runs New Mexico's elections — states and counties do. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission supports officials with standards and voting-system testing. Verify → | Each nation elects or selects its own leaders under its own laws — the Navajo Nation has its own Election Administration. For state and federal elections, tribal members vote through the regular county system. Verify (example) → | The Secretary of State is New Mexico's top election official — uniform procedures, the statewide voter rolls, certified results. Verify → | County clerks actually run elections in New Mexico — voter registration, polling places, early voting, and counting. Verify (example) → | Depends on the town: many local elections are consolidated and run by the county clerk, while some cities — like Albuquerque — run their own through the city clerk. Verify (example) → |
| 🏫 Schools | The U.S. Department of Education provides funding (student aid, grants), enforces civil-rights laws in schools, and collects data. It doesn't run schools or set New Mexico's curriculum. Verify → | On some tribal lands, schools are run or funded by the federal Bureau of Indian Education or by the nation itself; many tribal students attend regular NM districts, working with tribal education departments. Verify → | The Public Education Department sets academic standards, licenses teachers, and distributes state money to public schools. Verify → | Counties don't run schools. Public schools belong to school districts — 89 separate local governments with their own elected boards. Verify → | Cities don't run schools either — districts do, and district lines often don't match city lines. (Albuquerque Public Schools is a district government, not part of the city.) Verify → |
| 💧 Water | The EPA sets national drinking-water safety standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act; federal agencies also fund water projects and manage big reservoirs. Verify → | Nations own and run their own water systems; on most tribal lands the EPA — not the state — oversees drinking-water safety directly with tribal governments. Tribal water rights are settled nation by nation. Verify → | The Office of the State Engineer decides who holds the legal right to use water and administers water rights statewide; the Environment Department separately enforces drinking-water safety for public systems. Verify → | Counties usually don't deliver water. Outside cities, most New Mexicans get water from special districts or community associations — all regulated by the state. Verify (regulator) → | In most towns a city utility delivers the water — Santa Fe's Water Division, for example. Albuquerque's water comes from a separate regional utility authority, not city government. Verify (example) → |
| 💵 Taxes | The IRS collects federal taxes — mainly income and payroll taxes. Verify → | Nations can tax within their lands — the Navajo Nation has its own Tax Commission (sales tax, fuel tax). What applies depends on the nation and its agreements with the state. Verify (example) → | Taxation & Revenue collects state taxes, including income tax and the gross receipts tax — a tax on business receipts usually passed on to customers. It works like, but is not, a sales tax. Verify → | Property tax is the county tax: the assessor values your property, the treasurer bills and collects. Rates are certified each year by the state DFA with the counties. Verify (example) → | Cities adopt local add-ons to the gross receipts tax — collected by the state and sent back to them — plus taxes like the lodgers' tax on hotel stays. Verify → |
| ⚖️ Courts | The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico hears federal cases, with courthouses in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Santa Fe. Verify → | Nations run their own courts, separate from state and federal systems — the Navajo Nation's Judicial Branch is the largest in NM. Whether a case belongs there depends on where it arose, who's involved, and the kind of case. Verify (example) → | State courts handle most cases: district courts at trial level, the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court above them, plus magistrate, municipal, probate, and Bernalillo's Metropolitan Court. Verify → | Every county has a magistrate court (traffic, misdemeanors, disputes under about $10,000) and an elected probate judge — county-based, but operated by the state court system. In Bernalillo, Metro Court fills the role. Verify → | Municipal courts handle city-ordinance violations — traffic, petty misdemeanors, and DWI inside city limits. There are 78 statewide; Albuquerque has none (Metro Court covers it). Verify → |
* Tribal nations are separate sovereign governments — 23 in New Mexico: 19 Pueblos, 3 Apache nations, and the Navajo Nation. Where a cell says "depends," that is the honest answer: authority varies by nation, land status, and the law involved.
Links marked "(example)" go to one representative government (like Bernalillo County or Albuquerque); structures are similar statewide but details vary. General civic education, not legal advice. Government responsibilities can change — check the date above, then check the source.