The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has cited “privacy interests” in refusing to release the immigration records of Prince Harry as requested by the Heritage Foundation.
DHS senior director Jimmy Wolfrey wrote in a letter to the conservative think tank that “To the extent records exist, this office does not find a public interest in disclosure sufficient to override the subject’s privacy interests,” according to the New York Post.
As Breitbart News reported, a Freedom of Information request had been made seeking release of the duke’s immigration papers amid concerns about how much of his drug use the British Royal revealed to U.S. authorities when he moved to America in February 2020.
Prince Harry made public in his controversial memoir Spare – published in January – he had consumed mushrooms, cocaine and marijuana both in his home country and in California.
These admissions included tales of not just doing lines of cocaine at his elite Eton boarding school and smoking cannabis both there and, as a much older adult, at the Royal residence of Kensington Palace.
Admitting to taking drugs can make moving to the U.S. permanently a difficult – sometimes impossible – task, but the U.S. government did not consider the Heritage Foundation’s request to be valid.
Heritage lawyer Samuel Dewey told the newspaper the reply from DHS “shows an appalling lack of transparency by the Biden Administration.”
File/Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex arrive at the British High Commissioner residency in Johannesburg to meet Graca Machel, widow of former South African president Nelson Mandela, on October 2, 2019. (MICHELE SPATARI/AFP via Getty)
“The Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to stonewall the Heritage Foundation’s Freedom of Information request are unacceptable, and we will be contesting their position,” he added.
“We expected to have to fight every step of this case in federal court and will continue to press for transparency and accountability for the American people.”
Prince Harry moved to Montecito, California, with his wife Meghan Markle in July 2020. The couple still live there with their young family.
In May the foundation had already expressed its frustration with delays from the DHS to respond.
The Heritage Foundation launched the legal battle against the U.S. government in April this year after it refused to release files relating to Prince Harry’s application for an American visa, as Breitbart London reported.
The filing made reference to “many prominent examples” of celebrities with known drug habits trying to enter the United States in the past.
The list includes Happy Mondays musician Mark Berry who was refused a visa, Libertines Frontman Pete Doherty who was turned around at New York’s JFK airport and put on the next flight home, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, and perhaps most famously John Lennon of the Beatles.
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