By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-15 22:46:25 | Updated at 2025-03-16 14:29:35
15 hours ago
Prince Harry’s visa files must be made public by Tuesday at the latest, a judge has ruled.
Judge Carl Nichols set the deadline to release the files which will give the clearest indication yet as to whether the Duke of Sussex lied on his immigration paperwork.
The judge, who sits in Washington, approved the redactions suggested by the Department of Homeland Security and said they were ‘appropriate’.
While it is not clear what material will be released, it could include forms which indicate whether Harry said ‘no’ when asked if he was a drug user.
Lawyers for DHS have previously said that three items will be released with redactions but a fourth must remain private.
Heritage sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year after the agency, which oversees immigration in America, refused a Freedom of Information request for Harry’s files.
Heritage claims that Harry may have lied on the forms under the section which asks if you have been a drug user.
In his memoir, ‘Spare’, and his Netflix TV series Harry talked about using cannabis, cocaine and magic mushrooms.
Prince Harry’s visa files must be made public by Tuesday at the latest, a judge has ruled. Pictured: Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, looks out into the crowd during the New York Times annual DealBook summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 4, 2024 in New York City
Judge Carl Nichols set the deadline to release the files which will give the clearest indication yet as to whether the Duke of Sussex lied on his immigration paperwork. Pictured: Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attend a photo call on the announcement of their engagement in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace
In his order, Judge Nichols said: ‘The government has provided the court with its proposed redactions to the documents…those redactions appearing appropriate, the government is ORDERED to lodge on the docket the redacted versions of those documents no later than March 18, 2025’.
The case has caused embarrassment and consternation for Harry and raised questions about whether he could be deported if he was found to have lied.
But President Donald Trump recently said he would not do so - because the Duke’s wife was ‘terrible’.
Trump said he was only giving Harry a break because ‘he’s got enough problems with his wife’.
In September Judge Nichols had refused the request from Heritage to release all the documents because the Duke had a right to privacy.
But after a hearing he reconsidered and said he wanted to reveal as much as he could.
‘In my view that has to happen’, Judge Nichols said during a previous hearing adding that wanted to make the ‘maximum amount’ of material public that he could.
Judge Nichols did however say he did not want to reveal Harry’s immigration status, meaning that there could be heavy redactions on some files.
Speaking after that hearing, Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at Heritage, appealed to Trump to make the files public.
The case has caused embarrassment and consternation for Harry and raised questions about whether he could be deported if he was found to have lied. Pictured: Prince Harry clenches his fist as he leaves Eton College on June 12, 2003
The original request sought to reveal whether Harry, who moved to the US after quitting being a working member of the British royal family, was getting ‘preferential treatment’. Pictured: The Duke of Sussex attends the 2024 Concordia Annual Summit on September 23, 2024 in New York City
He said that the President had put ‘border security and the application of the rule of law a top priority’.
In the past Harry has been frank about his drug use and once said that cannabis helped heal the trauma of the death of his mother, Princess Diana.
The Duke said that using ayahuasca, the psychedelic drug, he realized that his mother wanted him to be ‘happy’.
That means Harry’s US visa application in March 2020 could show he ticked the ‘no’ box on questions about his drug use, Heritage claims.
In previous legal filings, DHS said that the records at issue are ‘particularly sensitive’ because they would ‘reveal Harry’s (immigration) status in the United States’.
‘Even if public figures may have a diminished expectation of privacy, they do not surrender their privacy interests entirely’,
The filing added that ‘were this not the case, a requester could go on a fishing expedition for (government) records for any celebrity at all’.
The original request sought to reveal whether Harry, who moved to the US after quitting being a working member of the British royal family, was getting ‘preferential treatment’.
Heritage has merely ‘recounted a litany of allegedly suspicious circumstances (that) lacked any substantiation’, DHS said.
DHS has also dismissed the Heritage Foundation’s claims as a ‘bare suspicion of government misconduct’ and making Harry’s paperwork public would not shed any ‘meaningful light’ on how it operates.
Harry’s representatives have declined to comment on the case.
