Last night’s ruling that the details of Prince Harry’s US visa application should remain private has been labelled “suspicious” by an American think tank.
Conservative group The Heritage Foundation had taken legal action against the US government to try and force Harry’s documents into the public eye.
But in a ruling seen in court documents on Monday, US judge Carl Nichols said: “The public does not have a strong interest in disclosure of the duke’s immigration records.”
But now, Mike Howell, the executive director of the think tank’s Oversight Project, told US outlet Newsweek: “The Prince Harry scandal just got a lot more suspicious.
\u200bPrince Harry admitted to using the drug in his book Spare
Prince Harry admitted to using drugs in his controversial memoir, SpareGETTY
“While our case is far from over as we explore appeal, I’d say that these very curious redactions point to something serious afoot.
“President Trump has already suggested that Prince Harry will be deported next year – and the case for that just got a lot more compelling!
“Americans deserve an immigration system with both secure borders and also fairly applied rules for high-profile immigrants like Harry.”
Howell added: “It certainly appears that Harry was given special treatment… and now we know it for something so serious that it involves extensive redactions.
“Americans will know the full story soon enough… Perhaps, Mr and Mrs Markle will tell us what’s beneath the redactions on their next Netflix special.”
The think tank had raised concerns over the Duke of Sussex’s own admissions of drug-taking in his controversial memoir, Spare.
Harry had written that cocaine “didn’t do anything for me”, but “marijuana is different… that actually really did help me” in the novel.
When applying for his residency permit in the US, Harry would have had to fill out a form asking if he had ever used illegal drugs.
But Melissa Chavin from Chapman Immigration Law Office had previously told GB News that Harry is likely to hold an A1 visa – typically handed to ambassadors, heads of state and members of the Royal Family.
As a result, Chavin said, Prince Harry would be in the country “on something that none of us see” – an “uncommon and rare” visa.
The Heritage Foundation has argued that drug use “generally renders such a person inadmissible for entry” to the US.
However, on Monday, judge Nichols said: “Like any foreign national, the duke has a legitimate privacy interest in his immigration status.”
That added to comments made by John Bardo, a laywer representing the Department of Homeland Security, who said that no “publicly available information shows that Prince Harry was ever convicted for a drug-related offence”.
