Questions about Prince Harry’s United States visa have been up in the air for months, and more details have since emerged.
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday, March 18, in favor of the Heritage Foundation to unseal Harry’s visa application in court. However, the heavily redacted document — which is 82 pages across seven exhibits — doesn’t reveal his immigration status.
“To release his exact status could subject him to reasonably foreseeable harm in the form of harassment as well as unwanted contact by the media and others,” chief FOIA officer for the Department of Homeland Security Jarrod Panter said in a declaration obtained by NBC News. “There is the potential of harm in the form of harassment if his exact (redacted) is revealed. Thus, there is significant privacy interests involved in the records.”
The documents, more than half of which have been blacked out, do not discuss whether Harry allegedly lied on his application about his past drug use.
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It was initially reported on Sunday, March 16, that Harry’s immigration files would be released within days after a U.S c conservative think-tank, The Heritage Foundation, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The Heritage Foundation alleged that Harry, 40, concealed past drug use, which would have disqualified him from obtaining a U.S. visa.
The drama surrounding Harry’s U.S. visa was revealed in March 2024, when Nile Gardiner — the Heritage Foundation’s director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom — shared that the think-tank was in a legal battle with the Department of Homeland Security so that Harry’s visa application would be released.
Initially, a judge denied the request in September 2024, citing that there was a lack of public interest. Last month the Department of Homeland Security agreed to release redacted versions of Harry’s application.
The same judge previously denied the FOIA request, citing lack of public interest. However, lawyers for the Department of Homeland Security said in February that it would publish redacted versions of Harry’s forms.
Us Weekly reached out to representatives for the Duke of Sussex and Department of Homeland Security for comment.
Harry admitted to previously using cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms in his 2023 memoir Spare. He spoke with 60 Minutes in January 2023 about doing psychedelics to help with this grief following the 1997 loss of his mother, Princess Diana.
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“I would never recommend people to do this recreationally,” Harry said at the time. “But doing it with the right people if you are suffering from a huge amount of loss, grief, or trauma, then these things have a way of working as a medicine.”
He added, “For me they cleared the wind screen, the misery of loss. They cleared away this idea that I had in my head that my mother — that I needed to cry to prove to my mother that I missed her, when, in fact, what she wanted was for me to be happy.”
