Royal | News - Prince Ricardo De La Cerda
Prince Harry’s US visa row could progress significantly today as the judge involved in the case is expecting an update from the US Government.
The Duke of Sussex, 43, has been living in America since quitting royal life in 2020, however since the release of his memoir Spare in 2023, a think tank group have questioned how the prince has been allowed to reside here.
This is because Harry admitted in his bombshell memoir that he had previously taken drugs in his younger years – a factor which may bar entrance to the States.
Since the revelation, conservative Washington DC think tank The Heritage Foundation has suggested that Harry either lied on his immigration forms about his past with drugs or was given special treatment to reside in the US by the Joe Biden administration.
To find out more, the think tank has been urging courts to release the prince’s visa application to determine whether or not he lied.
While this request to make the documents public was rejected last year, The Mirror reported that earlier this month, Judge Carl Nichols told a hearing in Washington DC that he wanted to know which of the documents in Harry’s visa application could be released in order to offer “maximum disclosure as long as it doesn’t violate privacy”.
The judge then set a date of today (February 20) for the US government to state which legal documents related to the case can be disclosed publicly and made available for scrutiny.
The Heritage Foundation argued there was an important public interest justification for this.
While Harry needs a visa to reside in America, a place he has called home for the last five years, the same cannot be said for his American wife Meghan Markle, 43, and their two children, Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.