A US think tank wants to reopen its case to make public Prince Harry’s secret US visa application after he admitted to drug use in his memoirs.
The Heritage Foundation questioned why the Duke of Sussex was allowed to enter the US with his wife Meghan in 2020 after he spoke about the use of cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms in his book Spare, released in January 2023.
The Washington DC-based conservative group filed a lawsuit against the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) after a Freedom of Information request was denied.
Heritage claimed Harry’s document was of “great public importance” but lost the case on September 23 after Judge Carl Nichols ruled it should remain private.
The case was brought because the law requires visa applicants to declare whether they have used drugs. Failure to do so could result in deportation, and Heritage wanted the US government to release the data to see what Harry said about drug use.
Now Heritage has filed a new lawsuit in an attempt to reopen the case, saying it was barred from seeing private submissions to the judge by the Biden administration.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London on June 3, 2022
The 13-page motion filed Tuesday seeks to “overturn” the earlier ruling and unseal private correspondence between DHS and the judge, it was reported Newsweek.
The judge’s order was designed to protect the duke’s privacy, but Heritage claimed it “seriously compromises” his ability to “prepare arguments on appeal.”
Parts of the judgment that were redacted included facts that Harry did not disclose regarding his immigration status and details, and what was in his visa application.
But Heritage attorneys said there was “ample evidence of agency bad faith” and said their legal team was “not blind to the fact that they have brought a unique case fraught with these complexities.”
They added that Heritage attorneys “simply argue that the path forward the court has chosen is inconsistent with our adversarial system.”
American judge Carl Nichols ruled against the Heritage Foundation on September 23
In the September 23 ruling, Judge Nichols said that “the public has no strong interest in the disclosure of the Duke’s immigration records.”
Harry spoke about drug use in his memoir Spare, which was released in January 2023
His judgment added: ‘Like any foreigner, the Duke has a legitimate privacy interest in his immigration status.
“And the Duke’s public statements about his travels and drug use did not reveal, and therefore did not eliminate, his interest in maintaining personal, specific information about his immigration status, applications or other materials.”
Judge Nichols went on to say that the public interest in the disclosure of Harry’s immigration details “does not outweigh the Duke’s privacy interest.”
He said: “Public release of data regarding a single admission of an alien in the circumstances described above would provide the public with, at best, limited information about the Department’s general policies in admitting aliens.
“And the marginal public benefit of knowing about limited information is offset by the privacy interest the Duke has in his immigration status and records.”
In March, attorneys for the Department for Homeland Security asked for more time to comply with a judge’s order to provide more information about why he wouldn’t release the documents.
In his controversial memoir, the duke said cocaine ‘did nothing for me’, adding: ‘Marijuana is different, that really helped me.’
Judge Carl Nichols said ‘the public has no strong interest in the Duke’s immigration records being made public’
Heritage’s original lawsuit argued that U.S. law “generally does not render such a person admissible” to the country.
The group also said answers about the duke’s previous drug use in his visa application should have been made public because they could raise questions about the integrity of the US government.
DHS’s response to the legal claim stated, “Like health, financial, or employment information, an individual’s immigration information is personal personal information.”
Defense attorney John Bardo’s statements on behalf of DHS also state that there is no “publicly available information indicating that Prince Harry has ever been convicted of a drug-related crime.”
Mr. Bardo added that any suggestion from Heritage about wrongdoing on behalf of the U.S. government was “purely speculative.”
In March, former President Donald Trump suggested Harry could be deported if his drug use was not mentioned on the application.
The immigration file of Melania Trump’s Slovenian mother Amalija Knavs was released by think tank The Heritage Foundation amid her battle with the US Department of Homeland Security
He told GB News: ‘We will have to see if they know anything about the drugs and if he was lying they will have to take appropriate action.’
Asked if that meant the Duke “didn’t stay in America,” he said: “Oh, I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me. You just have to tell me. You’d think they’d known this for a long time.’
In addition, the Heritage Foundation released the immigration records of Melania Trump’s mother following a successful Freedom of Information request with DHS.
The 166 pages of documents related to Amalija Knavs, who was sworn in as a US citizen in 2018 but died in Miami in January at the age of 78.
A family lawyer told DailyMail.com that Mrs. Trump was “rightly angry” about the release and “will explore retaliation options to protect her family.”
Ms Knavs’ documents contain highly personal information, such as her home address in her native Slovenia and several full passports.
They also include immunization and medical information showing a negative HIV test result, and her vaccination records for chickenpox and other diseases.
Heritage has cited the release of Ms. Knavs’ file as further reason to go public with Harry’s. MailOnline has contacted the duke’s spokesperson for comment.