Politics
Where
Prince Harry’s immigration case stands as he prepares to leave US with Meghan
Markle
By Josh
Christenson
Published
Aug. 20, 2026, 3:29 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON
— The mystery of whether Prince Harry fibbed on his immigration papers will
likely remain unsolved, as a pair of federal court cases seeking to compel
disclosures about the terms of his visa stalled in the months before he and
wife Meghan Markle announced Wednesday they would be returning to the UK.
Lawyers
at the conservative Heritage Foundation sued the Department of Homeland
Security and the State Department in 2023 to crack open the Duke of Sussex’s
immigration file after Harry admitted in his memoir “Spare” to taking drugs.
Upon
emigrating to the US in 2020, the black sheep royal should have disclosed his
substance abuse — including dabbling in cocaine, cannabis, and psychedelic
mushrooms — in a document that would have made its way to DHS.
The
now-41-year-old’s visa application to the State Department would have also been
fraudulent if Harry didn’t share his youthful misadventures with drugs.
But
Heritage’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuits failed to bring forward
information from either agency about the prince’s immigration status before the
duke and duchess announced they would be crossing back over the pond six years
after stepping back from royal duties.
“We still
want all the documents,” said former Heritage staffer Mike Howell, now
president of the government accountability group Oversight Project and a party
to the lawsuits.
“Prince
Harry may be leaving, but our fight for the truth goes on,” Howell added.
“Maybe he won’t be able to come back.”
President
Trump had ruled out deporting the prince early in his second term, joking to
The Post’s Miranda Devine: “I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with
his wife.”
A
well-placed DC source claimed that while the legal battles challenged Harry and
Meghan’s presence in the US, the couple was really forced to exit after what
this person called their “grift” — including an ill-fated bid to become Netflix
stars and Meghan’s attempt to carve out a Martha Stewart-esque niche as a
lifestyle brand — ran out of steam.
“Spare”
broke records by becoming the fastest-selling nonfiction book of all time when
it was published in January 2023.
In March
2025, the Heritage suit against DHS yielded a handful of heavily redacted court
declarations from federal agents who had personally reviewed Harry’s
immigration file.
The
agency only confirmed that it held “entry and exit records to the United
States” for Harry but declined to discuss other documents due to “the Duke’s
right to privacy.”
A federal
judge had already ruled out releasing information from the file itself, writing
in a September 2024 opinion that “the public does not have a strong interest in
disclosure of the duke’s immigration records.”
An
earlier declaration by a DHS Freedom of Information Act officer claimed that
the public also wasn’t entitled to the records if their release could submit
Harry to “harm” or “harassment.”
Heritage
attorneys subsequently sued the State Department for a broader range of
documents that amounted to all records on the royal since January 2020.
Department
officials revealed in late July that just 18 records were responsive to the
initial request but would all be withheld due to FOIA and immigration laws.
Heritage
lawyers theorized that Harry likely came to the US on a so-called O-1 visa,
which is reserved for people “of exceptional talent or ability.”
To obtain
an O-1 visa, applicants must provide a petition from a sponsor with evidence of
“exceptional talent or ability.” In Harry’s case, attorney Samuel Dewey
previously told The Post, that sponsor could have been one of the prince’s
foundations and the visa may have been granted based on his “fundraising”
prowess or any other skill deemed “exceptional.”
Both
suits were also filed under suspicion that Harry may have received special
treatment from the feds, regardless of how truthful he was about his confessed
drug use.
Reps for DHS and the State Department did not respond to requests for commen
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