With Donald Trump’s plan to handle the issue of illegal immigration, there were concerns surrounding Prince Harry’s status and whether he is prone to deportation.
Trump announced that he has no plans to deport the Duke of Sussex, adding that Prince Harry already has enough on his plate with his wife, Meghan Markle. For now, he is safe in Montecito.
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Markle is not Trump’s cup of tea
Trump told the New York Post that he’ll spare the Duke of Sussex from deportation, saying: “I don’t want to do that. I’ll leave him alone. He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.”
The Heritage Foundation has another say
The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing US think tank that Trump has been mirroring with the commencement of his second term, has been wanting to probe further into Prince Harry’s immigration status in the wake of his memoir, Spare.
Why the foundation wants to know more
In Prince Harry’s memoir, he admitted to doing cocaine several times as a teenager and experimenting with cannabis and other psychedelic drugs.
To the Heritage Foundation, this could mean that he lied about his past drug use in his forms or he might have received special treatment from former president Joe Biden’s administration.
They sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
In 2023, there was a demand on the DHS to release Prince Harry’s records but the DHS rejected the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom of Information Act request. This week, however, a judge said he is still looking into the case.
A judge is on the case
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols dedicated his focus to handling three sworn statements from DHS officials on why the agency was fighting the request to release these records.
The foundation’s legal team hasn’t seen these records yet and the judge is debating whether to release part or all of the records he’s attained so far or not.
The judge wants to know more
The judge has only seen parts of Harry’s immigration records, and he’s debating requesting more records from the government and calling in an outside expert as a consultant. The Duke of Sussex is not a party in the lawsuit.
The couple aren’t fans of Trump either
Prince Harry and Markle have been vocal about their disapproval of Trump throughout the years.
In 2016 in an interview with Larry Wilmore, Markle expressed her hate for the president, calling him a “misogynist” and “divisive.”
Trump retaliated
Later in 2019, Trump dismissed Markle’s remarks, saying: “I didn’t know she was nasty.” The year after, he declared that he was not a fan of her, wishing Harry “a lot of luck” and adding: “He’s going to need it.”
It’s been going back and forth
As Trump and Biden competed against each other in the elections, Harry appeared in a video, asking the people not to vote for Trump, saying: “Reject hate speech, misinformation, and online negativity.”
Trump, on the other hand, told Express U.S. tabloid that he would not “protect” Harry.
Trump took the chance to praise Prince William
“I think William is a great young man,” Trump said about Prince William. They privately met in December 2024 at the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and Trump expressed then how elated he was, sitting with Prince William.
