Abstract:
The controversy surrounding the US President's proposal on social media to rename New Mexico "New America" continues to rage. A delegation of New Mexico Democratic congressmen recently formally sent a letter to executives of the two technology giants Apple and Google, urging their map application services not to comply with any unilateral name change requests and to stick to the legal name of the state on digital maps.
Previously, the President of the United States posted many times on social platforms and showed modified maps, advocating changing the name of New Mexico to "New America", and even made it part of the trade dispute and political narrative. Prior to this, the White House had passed an executive order requiring the changes to the names of many geographical entities in the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) database. For example, the Gulf of Mexico was changed to "American Bay" in the federal database, and Lake Ontario was renamed "American Lake". Apple Maps and Google Maps subsequently followed up on the above federal place name changes in system updates. Out of strong concerns about similar administrative actions affecting the state's historical names, several New Mexico congressmen chose to put direct pressure on technology companies.
By Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján and Representatives Melanie Stansbury, Teresa Leger Fernández and Gabe Vasquez Vasquez stressed in a joint letter that the President of the United States does not have the constitutional power to unilaterally change the legal name of a state. The naming of New Mexico is deeply rooted in the long history, culture and state constitution of the country and must not be obliterated by any political manipulation. Lawmakers asked Apple and Google to publicly commit that their mapping platforms must resolutely use the only legal name "New Mexico" no matter what future social statements the White House issues, what executive orders it attempts to sign, or what external pressure it exerts.
However, legal and technology policy analysts point out that lawmakers' direct targeting of commercial technology companies is largely a political performance. Technology companies do not have the right or discretion to name places in the field of map mapping. The authoritative place name data in the United States used by Apple Maps and Google Maps is directly derived from the federal Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) maintained by the U.S. Geological Survey. Under relevant regulations, commercial map providers who refuse to adopt the official database's standard place names may face the compliance risk of losing access to federal geographic data.
Legal experts further emphasized that unlike natural geographical features such as federally governed waters or national parks, the names of states are state-level constitutional matters. Even if the president uses an executive order, he cannot directly change the legal name of a sovereign state beyond the constitution; if they want to truly block the gray operations of administrative power on geographical name databases, members of Congress should exercise legislative supervision and checks and balances at the legislative level of Congress, rather than requiring private technology companies in a subordinate data receiving position to bear the cost of legal and political confrontation. At present, Apple and Google have not yet made official comments on the public joint letter of the parliamentary group.
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