On Tuesday, a federal judge “released” information about Prince Harry’s visa records. The information was a document dump of almost entirely redacted/blacked-out text. The British and American media had spent years sharpening their knives and screaming “cocaine, deportation, Harry lied” over and over and then the court was like, lol, nah. Yes, I’ve seen Nile Gardiner’s spectacular crashout too – he’s the Heritage Foundation douche who has made it his mission in life to get Harry deported from America. Gardiner’s likely alt account just got exposed this week, but we don’t need to get into the weeds on that one. Meanwhile, I read through the Times of London’s coverage, which was surprisingly not written by a royalist wingnut. I thought some of you might enjoy these highlights:

The department of immigration and citizenship said that releasing “[Harry’s] exact status could subject him to reasonably foreseeable harm in the form of harassment as well as unwanted contact by the media and others”. Jarrod Panter, the chief freedom of information officer at the DHS, said the department “routinely protects from disclosure the non-immigrant/immigrant status sought by third parties who do not have permission from the beneficiary to receive this information”.

Charles Kuck, an immigration attorney based in Georgia, told The Times there was nothing unusual in the judge’s decision to withhold the documents.

“Not only would it be illegal for them to release this information, it would be a federal crime for them to do so,” he said. “I’m surprised a federal judge was convinced to take it this far. I guess I’m going to ask for Elon’s (Musk) file now and Melania’s (Trump) file because isn’t it in the public interest there as well?”

Experts have speculated that Harry could have used an A-1 Head of State visa, which entails less stringent security checks and would have allowed Harry to come and go from the US frequently with no limit on the duration of his stay. Residing in the US on an A-1 visa would make Harry both immune from prosecution and exempt from paying tax to the US Internal Revenue Service.

“Prince Harry, if he is on an A-1 Head of State visa, will remain US tax nonresident regardless of his presence in the United States,” said Clayton Cartwright, managing member of The Cartwright Law Firm. “It keeps private to Great Britain not just the foreign assets Prince Harry owns, but also other assets of the royal family on which he is listed. It is good diplomatic practice,” he said. Cartwright noted that it would, however, mean Harry was not on a path to citizenship as he could be with a green card, making him more vulnerable in the longer term to possible deportation.

[From The Times]

I mostly avoid speculating about what kind of visa Harry has because it’s not any of my business and it’s not the Heritage Foundation’s business either. But given how thoroughly Heritage’s attempts have been shut down over and over, I do think it’s probably pretty likely that Harry does have one of the more elite visas like an A-1. It would make sense if it was one of the rare ones, because the few people who have looked at Harry’s (unredacted) records are immediately like “wow, nothing to see here, folks!” As for Charles Kuck’s comments… I’m shocked that the Times even published them. What’s that? If Heritage got their way, Harry could sue the sh-t out of them and the DHS? You mean Heritage has been demanding that DHS commit a federal crime by releasing Harry’s records?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.