Public meeting on proposed Mescalero Apache Tribe land exchange postponed

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- A spokesperson for the New Mexico State Land Office says the office, along with the Mescalero Apache Tribe, have postponed the public meeting that had been scheduled to discuss a potential land exchange between the two entities.

Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard announced today that the meeting, which had been scheduled for Monday, November 24, 2025, in Las Cruces, has now been pushed back. Organizers want to find a larger space, explaining that the previous community meeting, which happened on November 7 at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, drew a large crowd. The spokesperson says that November 7 meeting saw a standing-room only crowd that poured out into the hallway and lobby of the museum.

The land office is in the early stages of reviewing the Mescalero Apache Tribe's potential land exchange, and that no final decision have yet been made.

"Acknowledging that the majority of lands the State Land Office currently stewards were once Indigenous lands, Commissioner Garcia Richard reached out to all Pueblos, Nations, and Tribes in New Mexico to gauge their interest in conducting land exchanges that would return lands of importance to their communities and allow the State Land Office to acquire lands better suited to its mission," the spokesperson explained. "In response, the Mescalero Apache Tribe approached the State Land Office to propose a land exchange that would return some ancestral lands near Las Cruces to the Tribe for as-yet-unidentified equal-value lands the Tribe would acquire and convey to the State Land Office. Since time immemorial and before being forcibly removed to the Mescalero Apache Reservation, the Mescalero Apache people inhabited the Organ Mountains, harvesting cactus and other plants, drinking from springs, and naming numerous landmarks that exist today."