Abstract
The existence of a right of intrastate travel implicates basic liberties like visiting parks, driving to visit family in another city, going to church or the doctor, or voting. In addition to its importance to everyday, basic liberties, the right of intrastate travel is important for vulnerable populations, like disaster evacuees, unhoused people subject to displacement, and people seeking abortions in states without uniform availability, like New Mexico. Despite the essential nature of the implicated actions, federal courts do not agree on whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of intrastate travel. This comment argues that the right of intrastate travel is properly a matter of state law, because (1) it is not a proper exercise of federal authority, (2) federal interpretations are too inconsistent, and (3) state-level grounding allows states to customize the right to their unique geography and demographics. The Natural Rights provision and the Public Waters provision of the New Mexico Constitution are two possible avenues for New Mexico courts to create a state constitutional right of intrastate travel.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Katherine S. Leung,
The Road Less Traveled: The Path to a Right of Intrastate Travel in State Constitutions,
56
N.M. L. Rev.
145
(2026).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol56/iss1/6
