Drug Question Looms for Prince Harry as Judge Orders the Release of Court Documents on His Visa

The fight over Prince Harry’s visa to America could be coming to a head. Heritage says the Department of Homeland Security has been “stonewalling” its Freedom of Information Act Request since March. In July, the agency defended Harry’s “right to privacy” and refused to “confirm or deny” if any visa records exist. “The Biden administration has requested extra time to submit the documents,” the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center at Heritage, Nile Gardiner, tells the Sun. Judge Carl J. Nichols of the Federal District Court in Washington has given them until April 4 to comply.“The judge will then review the documents en camera,” Mr. Gardiner said, “and will issue a ruling on whether they should be released to the public. “With regard to how long that takes, it could be several weeks,” placing it in the heat of the presidential election season.“We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs,” President Trump said in an interview set to broadcast today on GB News, “and if he lied, they’ll have to take appropriate action.” Like any other immigrant, the Duke of Sussex’s penalty could be deportation and a ban from returning to America.Harry, who last month said he might seek American citizenship, has invited scrutiny with candid recollections of illegal drug use. In his memoir, “Spare,” he describes partaking of marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, and cocaine. Asked about this on his book tour, he called psychedelics “one of the fundamental parts” of his life.The Immigration and Naturalization Act states that visa applicants who “admit to having committed acts that constitute the essential elements of a violation of any law or regulation of a state, the U.S., or a foreign country relating to a controlled substance are inadmissible” and should be rejected.Although Harry wed an American, Meghan Markle, the idea that his marriage confers automatic citizenship is a misconception. Permanent residents are still subject to the law while their green card application is processed and even after they’re granted that status.There’s speculation that Harry was given a diplomatic visa, but those are reserved for those engaging in “official activities on behalf of his national government.” The Duke is a non-working member of the Royal family. Mr. Gardiner said the case “really goes to the very heart of the application of the rule of law in the American immigration system. I think the American people care about this. They want to see the laws applied fairly and equally without any kind of favorable preferential treatment being given.”Either Harry “lied under oath” on his application, Mr. Gardiner said, “disclosed the full extent of his drug use and received a waiver, or DHS blatantly ignored the law.” An assistant United States attorney, John J. Bardo, floated a third possibility in July for the Biden Administration on Harry’s behalf.“Just saying something in a book,” Mr. Bardo argued, “doesn’t make it true,” adding that people often write things to “sell books.” The suggestion that Harry was “lying about his drug use in his own book,” Mr. Gardiner said, “just seems to be absolutely preposterous.”Mr. Gardiner pointed out that “Spare” is “not a biography. It’s an autobiography. This is Harry’s own book with his own name on it and he’s repeated his drug-use stories elsewhere. He’s openly admitted to using drugs on a number of occasions.”What’s “really important,” Mr. Gardiner said, is did Harry “lie on his immigration application. That’s the question that needs to be answered. The Biden administration, of course, is refusing to release the documents to the American people, and that’s unacceptable.”The case, Mr. Gardiner said, raises questions “about whether or not U.S. immigration law is applied equally and fairly or whether preferential treatment is given to certain celebrity individuals.” He sees that as “all Trump is saying.”Mr. Gardiner said that Mr. Trump “has made it clear that he would support the release,” and that Mr. Biden “should be doing that right now.” Rather than political targeting, as has been alleged, he sees Mr. Trump’s stance as “a simple statement supportive of transparency, openness, and accountability.”Judge Nichols will decide if the American people, and those who’ve gone through the immigration process, get the answers Heritage seeks. In the meantime, Harry could have to put applying for citizenship on hold and ponder life without the royal treatment to which he’s become accustomed.

Drug Question Looms for Prince Harry as Judge Orders the Release of Court Documents on His Visa

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