Will Prince Harry be deported from the US?

Only five months after the matter was seemingly closed, a lawsuit fighting to make Prince Harry’s private US visa records public is set to reopen in a federal court in Washington DC.

The development comes after Judge Carl J Nichols agreed to reopen the case during a hearing for the case brought on by lawyers at the conservative Heritage Foundation against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to compel the release of Harry’s records.

Notably, the revelation could determine whether the 40-year-old was lawfully issued an American visa or increase his risk of deportation for lying to authorities about his past drug abuse which he mentioned in his bestselling memoir, Spare.

Here’s a look at the case and what happens next.

Prince Harry’s visa case

The Heritage Foundation launched a legal battle against DHS, which manages visa and immigration applications, after a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain Prince Harry’s visa application documents was rejected.

The think tank, at the time, claimed it was of “immense public interest.”

The lawsuit mentioned Harry admitting to having recreationally used marijuana, cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms in his memoir, Spare, released in 2023 – about three years after he moved to the US with his wife Meghan Markle.

“It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, as it seemed to make everyone around me, but it did make me feel different, and that was the main goal. Feel. Different.”

For those uninitiated, US visa application forms particularly ask about current and past drug usage and confessing this can often lead to rejection.

In their lawsuit, the group argued, “The law generally renders such a person inadmissible for entry” to the United States, though immigration officers make final decisions.

The group called for the DHS to make his documents public to see whether he had lied on his forms or was given special treatment by the former Joe Biden administration.

The think thank also submitted a Freedom of Information Act to obtain the documents, but was rejected.

The Duke of Sussex is not directly involved in any proceedings as the case is filed against the US government’s DHS.

The case was closed in September last year after judge Nichols ruled Harry’s visa application would remain private.

He ruled, “The public does not have a strong interest in disclosure of the duke’s immigration records. Like any foreign national, the duke has a legitimate privacy interest in his immigration status.”

Reopening the case

The case is being reopened after Judge Nichols determined, “To the maximum extent possible, I’m required to make public everything that can be made public.”

The US judge asked both parties to appear in court for a “motion for relief from judgment hearing in Washington DC on Wednesday.”

“I’m going to take this in stages,” Nichols said, adding that he would allow the US government to “submit proposed redactions” to “analyse” whether Harry properly attested to the drug abuse.

Nichols also acknowledged that the case had been derailed due to procedural lapses flagged by the think tank’s lawyers, including the September ruling.

“We can talk about how one goes about unringing that bell. At a minimum, we’d have to go through that process,” the US judge said.

According to NY Post, Heritage lawyer Samuel Dewey said, “I certainly think that some stuff can be disclosed and I don’t think it would necessarily just be a shell. There is no expert you talk to who can figure out how the heck (Harry) is here without something having happened.”

“If he came in, got a waiver, said, ‘Yes, I did all these drugs. Here’s the 10-page attachment to my form where I checked “yes,” detailing all my directives, got a waiver’ — those records would be in DHS. There would be DHS records adjudicating a waiver,” Dewey told the publication.

“It could have been a diplomatic visa from the State Department,” he added. “Or they just let him in … No different than if I walked across the Rio Grande, paroled you into the country, said, ‘You’re a gotaway. Go!’”

Trump won’t save Harry if he lied…

While US President Donald Trump can intervene and ask for the documents to be released directly, he previously warned that Prince Harry could face consequences if he lied about taking drugs on his US visa application.

The president spoke about his visa application in February’s conference, in which he had claimed that the previous Biden administration had been “too gracious” to the royal ever since he moved to California in 2020.

“I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me,” Trump said at the time.

In March last year, the Republican President had affirmed that Harry should not receive preferential treatment.

“No. We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he life they’ll have to take appropriate action.”

With inputs from agencies