WASHINGTON — The director of a conservative think tank suing to see Prince Harry’s visa application said their fight is on behalf of Americans who are “sick and tired” of globalist elites like the royal “lecturing” everyone and not being held to the same standards as everyone else.
The Heritage Foundation claim Harry’s admissions of using marijuana, cocaine, and psychedelic mushrooms in his memoir “Spare” could have affected his petition to come and live in the US and want to know how he answered questions about it on official forms.
The case highlights the US’s “broken immigration system” that has a “dual standard,” according to Mike Howell, Director of the Oversight Project at Heritage Foundation, who argued Americans deserve to know if the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to let Harry, 38, live as a resident in the country was fair.
He added: “The everyday American is absolutely sick and tired of globalist elites looking down on us, dominating our cultural institutions — and no one proves that point more than Prince Harry.
“The American people deserve to know if their immigration laws are being applied fairly.”
Harry and his American wife Meghan initially left the UK for Canada at the end of 2019, then relocated to the California in March 2020, just as the world started locking down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Heritage Foundation filed suit at the beginning of May demanding Department of Homeland Security make public Harry’s visa application given his admitted drug use, after their Freedom of Information Act request was denied.
The case was heard in court on Tuesday, where a judge said he would spend more time reviewing the case.
People with a history of drug abuse or addicts are “inadmissible,” under US law, although exceptions can be made to this rule and are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that we have to use taxpayer money to defend against these freedom of information requests and take it all the way to federal court,” added Howell.
During the court hearing, Washington DC federal Judge Carl Nichols asked why the case warranted an emergency injunction.
Heritage’s Samuel Everett Dewey responded it’s “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest,” and later added “it truly requires this accelerated approach.”
John Bardo, a lawyer with the Department of Justice, said Heritage’s request for the records had already been rejected by three other government agencies.
He noted that DHS hadn’t made a determination yet on Heritage’s request, but said they weren’t willing to expedite it.
Nichols challenged DHS’ stance saying: “So because DHS [Headquarters] is unwilling to expedite” Heritage’s request, “I have to decide.”
“Seems like a waste of time to me, frankly,” the judge said.
The judge said the case was more important to the public than most Freedom of Information Act cases.
Bardo said that Heritage hadn’t shown a basis through media reporting that “allowing Prince Harry to be here is doing something wrong.”
But Dewey countered that the press reports they presented in the case “raise specific questions,” of whether DHS approved Harry’s application “in a preferential manner.”
Nichols said he would rule at a later date but pressed DHS to expedite their decision on whether to release files so he could instead focus on the merits of the case.
Dr. Niles Gardiner, the director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation: “We are fighting for accountability, for transparency, and we’re fighting really for the American people here who have a right to know what is in the immigration application of a very high-profile celebrity like Prince Harry.”
Earlier Tuesday, Harry appeared in person at a London court in an unrelated lawsuit in which he has brought claims against the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper over a series of stories they wrote about him dating back to 1996.