In Parts I and II, I argued that the current U.S. administration’s mass-denaturalization campaign is highly susceptible to error and abuse, that these risks compound in civil denaturalization cases, and that, in the absence of guaranteed public counsel, these risks become too high to survive due process scrutiny. This closing part examines the civil citizenship-removal process under the final element of the Mathews (1976) test. I argue that the private interests at stake and risk of improper denaturalization “clearly outweigh” any governmental interest in denying state-appointed counsel.

The Government may assert two such interests. First, that providing public counsel places excessive fiscal-administrative burdens on the state.

Thus far, the Court has never found any civil deprivation to warrant the burdens of providing a fundamental right to counsel, nor has it provided exact instructions on when this interest might be outweighed. The Court’s jurisprudence, nevertheless, drives the conclusion that the unavailability of state-appointed counsel in civil denaturalization cases violates due process standards.

The case law shows that, to be “appropriate to the nature of the case”, procedures and the burdens they impose may vary depending on a deprivation’s severity and permanence. In Mathews, for example, the Court found that the private interests in holding a pre-termination hearing for non-subsistence benefits did not outweigh the state’s cost-saving interest. Conversely, in Goldberg (1970), the Court found that the interest in a pre-termination hearing for subsistence benefits “clearly” did “outweigh” that state interest.

The “crucial factor” distinguishing Goldberg from the sort of claim in Mathews was that Goldberg involved a removal of the “very means by which to live” pending final judgment, potentially trapping a litigant in further poverty and deprivation. In essence, these cases show that as the risks of wrongful deprivation become harsher and harder to correct, the state’s interests weaken.

Following this line of reasoning, the “crucial factor” differentiating the harms in Goldberg from citizenship removal is that the latter not only strips people of their means to live, but “all that makes life worth living”. It may result in statelessness, arbitrary detention, torture, and death. Without counsel, respondents have a slim chance of raising an adequate defense, and if removed from U.S. soil after an unfair denaturalization, they would unlikely have anyone duty-bound to appeal. These consequences—more severe and permanent than those in Goldberg—clearly outweigh the added costs of procedural safeguards even stricter than those in Goldberg; and since a pre-termination hearing without defense counsel is “of little avail” in a mass-denaturalization campaign, the natural safeguard would, therefore, be guaranteed counsel.

Indeed, the Goldberg Court (at 266) reasoned that the added costs in that case were especially justified because the Government had other means to cut costs. Here too, the added costs are especially justified, as the Government’s burden in providing public counsel is proportionate to the number of cases it brings, so it could easily minimize costs by not seeking to meet arbitrary quotas.

Secondly, the Government may assert that existing civil denaturalization procedures most effectively allow it to protect national security. This interest, too, should be rejected. In Hamdi (2004), the Court held that even combatants captured in battle “unquestionably” have a right to counsel when challenging an indefinite administrative detention. The Government cannot plausibly claim any greater national security interest in denaturalizing a non-combatant citizen than in detaining an enemy combatant; by any measure, the liberty deprivations entailed by citizenship removal are at least as severe and permanent as those in Hamdi; and providing counsel in no way blocks the Government from tackling genuine terrorism/subversion in court. Accordingly, national security cannot serve as a valid basis to deny state-appointed counsel in civil denaturalization claims.

The Mathews test is imprecise. But the analysis above strongly indicates that the state interests in denying public counsel to civil denaturalization respondents would be outweighed. Until indigent denaturalization respondents are offered state-appointed counsel, the process to which they are subjected will necessarily fail due process standards. Whether currently practicable or not, the obvious way to remedy this procedural failure would be for the judiciary or Congress to expand guaranteed access to counsel to all civil denaturalization respondents; no one deserves to have their basic rights unfairly stripped simply because they are poor or because their case was hurried through the courts.

This is only a starting point. As advocates debate how to make our immigration justice system fairer, they must also look to the other deficiencies riddling the denaturalization process that allow the Government to unduly strip status en masse.