For the better part of 18 months, the British lunatics at the Heritage Foundation (an “American think tank”) have been harassing Prince Harry and the Biden administration over Harry’s visa and immigration status. Heritage has filed multiple lawsuits and FOIA requests, all for a fishing expedition into Harry’s immigration records. They wanted to “prove” that Harry lied in his visa application, except they had no proof that he lied. All of this started up after Spare was published. In the book, Harry admits to using drugs when he was younger, and he’s highlighted the use of psychedelics in therapeutic settings too. But yeah, it’s not a smoking gun – Harry can write about trying cocaine when he was a teenager and it’s not a dealbreaker for US Immigration. Anyway, all of that targeted harassment has come to naught. The judge in the case apparently terminated it this week?
A lawsuit brought over Prince Harry’s visa status by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation has been terminated, Newsweek can reveal.
The Duke of Sussex wrote in his memoir, Spare, how he had taken drugs including cocaine, marijuana and magic mushrooms. Heritage filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security demanding the publication of Harry’s visa documents, arguing that his use of narcotics should have barred him from living and working in America.
However, court records show that the case was terminated on September 9, when several sealed orders were filed in the case, heard in Washington D.C. before Judge Carl J. Nichols.
Little is currently known about exactly why the case was brought to an end, or whether this means Harry’s visa papers will now remain a secret. If that is the outcome, it will likely bring relief for the prince as Heritage had suggested his past drug-taking could undermine his right to live in America.
Kyle Brosnan, chief counsel for The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, told Newsweek in a statement: “Prince Harry repeatedly admitted to using illegal drugs in his memoir. “This fact alone makes him inadmissible into the United States. We sued to get answers to a simple question of whether the government gave Prince Harry preferential treatment when he entered the country. It appears the judge has ruled and that ruling is under seal. We know nothing about how the judge ruled. No one should read into the order, or the fact that it is under seal. We have always said this case is unique and opinions can be initially sealed in such cases. We will continue to monitor the situation.”
Heritage had suggested in filings seen by Newsweek that Harry must have either been dishonest about his past drug use or given favorable treatment due to his royal status and that he had eroded his own right to privacy.
Heritage made all kinds of wild, defamatory claims about Harry and drugs and the Biden administration, conveniently forgetting that Harry applied for and received his visa during the Trump administration. Heritage put the Department of Homeland Security in the awkward position of arguing that Harry has as much right to privacy as Donald Trump, and that Harry’s visa records are part of law-enforcement records (because ICE is part of DHS). Anyway, just a reminder, this was always a high-level scheme coordinated by the British media, the Windsors and Heritage working in concert to find some way to get Harry deported from America. Pretty disgusting if you ask me.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.
Upon discovery that Heritage Foundation authored PROJECT2025 and UKs Camilla Tominey is a card carrying member, I hope this is one of many losses they will experience here in the United States, including their candidate for President, Donald Trump.
It was a stupid move from the Heritage Foundation, Harry is a millionaire with an American wife and children.
I hadn’t realised that Harry went there when Trump was in charge. ROFL. The buck stops there.
Yes, that’s Trump with the foreign-born wife and in-laws. Talk about glass houses.
Good. The British media are very quiet about this outcome. They knew what they were doing.
Yup. And the usual suspects on the usual old-school message boards have been utterly silent. They should feel ridiculous.
The BM don’t like positive headlines about Harry. I would delve into the Heritage mob. It wouldn’t surprise me if Charles William and Camilla were involved in this. They still believe that Harry will come running back to the UK with his tail between his legs.
Very good.
The Brits and William just showing how low they will go~ again.
Happy Birthday, Harry – another win 👏👏
It never should have happened. They were on a witch hunt and they lost because there was no witch.
Nigel what’s-his-face must be shitting brickbats. He mounted a whole crusade to get Harry deported.
He could always come back to Britain with his wife and children and upset Farage even more.
I’m so grateful to this community, because there were days where I started to wonder, “could this go anywhere?” I’ve since really stopped going to the Daily Fail (I don’t even go for victory laps anymore) because it is truly the Upside Down, so I’m in a better place I understanding that they don’t speak reality. Keep living H+M!
I found it very refreshing after reading the hateful comments in the Wail and the Excess to come here.
Good for the judge. I am sick of the Heritage Foundation meddling in people’s business.
They need to be investigated next. Lots of Russian money floating around these days, let’s see if some landed in their bank accounts.
I absolutely think Heritage is bankrolled by Russia. No doubt about it.
THIS.
The Brexit jokers passed the baton to the MAGA ones.
There are clear lines linking the royalist/anti H&M brigade with this Heritage Foundation and the Epstein link between Trump and Prince Andrew means the kompromat people are being netted with to control people must be eyebleedingly terrible.
I’ve been saying for years that the Heritage Foundation is a terrorist organization, they never should have been allowed to sue for this information in the first place. It sure sounds like they think the case being terminated and sealed is somehow not an embarrassing loss. They will never see that sealed court decision. They have actually broken so many laws for a non profit organization they should be dismantled.. vote blue or the people at HF will be in control of your lives instead of being investigated.
I never understood at the end game for this for heritage and the Windsors, the media obviously just wanted to have salacious stories to write about ,parsing every single line of his application. But for the Windsors, did they think that he was just going to be deported the next day? And not that it’s a years-long process especially for someone wealthy, and was going to move back to the UK and immediately have to work for the royal family again? What would they have done if he would have decided to just move to Mexico? They behaved in such obviously abusive ways that if you took their names out of it and just put in the names Sally and Mark describing the situation it would sound like a lifetime movie.
They don’t want them to live in USA, so they are harassing them anyway they think of to make them leave. I remember on one of the UK channels, the news presenter said now that H&M are living in USA, they are gonna control the global media perception of themselves due to how powerful American media is. This was the discussion when they left for USA, before doc and book. This is the game the UK media and Windsors are playing. They want them to come back to UK and keep them under their absolute control. That’s why they were harassing them in Canada too to force them back to UK.
They detest democracy, interracial relationships and feminism. H&M are their worst nightmare come true.
Now that we’ve seen what heritage has been doing with project 2025 i actually don’t think this lawsuit was about Harry at all. I think Heritage was looking to create a legal precedent/mechanism for demanding the immigration records of whoever they deem an enemy. Harry was their “controversial” high profile target. Glad it’s over.
This.
VERY GOOD POINT
Agreed – Harry was an easy target because of the popularity of Spare and his high profile move from the UK to the US, but he would have just been the first one in this witch hunt.
Absolutely! I’ve always said this wasn’t just about Harry’s visa. They were looking for something. IMO the attack was twofold – 1) they were paid to harass Harry via the court and also wanted his private info made public and 2) this was a test case for McCarthyism 2.0 so 45 and the Repubs could harass and torment and (blackmail?) their imagined foreign “enemies”/anyone who disagreed with them or that they could use. Think of what someone evil who had that kind of unchecked power could do (esp since the Supreme Court stated presidents have immunity from prosecution for official crimes/acts).
The HF thought bc they had a Trump appointee for a judge (the majority of the federal judges appointed by Trump were recommended by the HF), they had it made. But they forgot who they were dealing with. The Dept of Homeland Security has very little, if any Congressional oversight, broad and vague duties, a very large budget and a trump card (no pun intended) called national security.
Glad this crap is over with. What a waste of time and money.
Despite having all that money from wherever and other secret xhannels, the people at Heritage don’t seem to have access to lawyers who are actually worth their salaries.
Otherwise they would have told them, as Kaiser has mentioned repeatedly, that Harry came in while the Orange Menace was still occupying the White House, and that people would rightfully be interested in seeing Melania’s application and her qualifications for the Einstein visa, and how her parents were greenlit.
This secret ruling sounds more sinister than it is though — as if money exchanged hands, or favors were received. This is no different from rulings involving family court cases. It is not a public matter, just waiting for everyone to looked into. A visa application contains so much private and personal information – medical, legal, financial – much of which is protected information and as such shouldn’t be out in public.
What the leftovers don’t understand is If Harry were deported, he still wouldn’t return to the UK and there are lots of other countries who would love to have the Sussex’s as residents.
If I’m not mistaken, I think a “bill of attainder” is when a law is created that prosecutes a single individual or group without a trial. While no law here was created targeting Harry alone, it is in essence what the Heritage Foundation was asking the courts to do here. To target Harry alone, out of a country of over 400 million people, including noncitizens, with having his immigrations records exposed. This is no different from what the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Party, acting through Project 2025, intend to do to those of us who don’t support Donald Trump.
I remember vaguely that “bill of attainder” had something to do with the American Revolution…
Racism played a huge part of Heritage Foundation’s reasoning for this lawsuit. This was to punish Harry for marrying Meghan. They were hoping Harry would be deported, leaving Meghan and their children behind. Law-abiding Americans cannot be deported, so Heritage was counting on Harry being forced back to the UK without his family. And even if Harry didn’t move back to the UK, Heritage and their British allies hoped a deportation would destroy his marriage.
As if Harry, Meghan and the children wouldn’t move to a friendlier country (Canada, France, Denmark, Spain…) together.
As time passes the tactics of the royal family and the british press are getting exposed. We are learning that the mechanisms of power they deployed to harass Harry and Meghan within the US is also how they’ve been manipulating the media and politics here. We are learning how many of the far right british writers and editors have infiltrated are media. We now know that the heritage foundation a far right think tank that has been poisoning our politics has links to the royals and the British Tory party.
Their obsession with the Sussexes has exposed them.
“We know nothing about how the judge ruled. No one should read into the order, or the fact that it is under seal. We have always said this case is unique and opinions can be initially sealed in such cases. We will continue to monitor the situation.”
I find that interesting, because why isn’t Newsweek shouting how the sealed orders mean that Harry is getting preferential treatment, and the Court isn’t going to show that. I guess they thought that would be one lie too many. This makes it sound like they’ll have attorneys filing motions to have the order(s) unsealed. Nope, I don’t see that happening.
The Heritage Foundation will just have to find another way to get hold of immigration VISA applications. I agree with some above that this lawsuit was to get a toehold into ALL immigration records. I suspect their intent was to make sure that if Trump got into office law enforcement would be knocking on doors to put all of these people in camps or deport them. These are some evil people.
My take as well, S&S. This was laying the path for Trumps revenge on his imagined enemies.
The only thing “unique” in this case is that Heritage Fndn lawyers wanted everyone to treat personal memoir “Spare” as if it were testimony given under oath. Otherwise they would have no basis for going after private immigration docs that should remain private. They managed to persuade Judge Carl J Nichols to look at private immigration records. At least for a minute.
Okay, this seems like a strange decision to me but perhaps someone can explain it to me. When administrative cases are terminated that is usually without prejudice, meaning that the aggrieved can refile afresh. However, if the decision is sealed, on what basis will they refile? I am assuming that the decision was sealed because this judge requested a copy of Harry’s application to peruse. I’m also assuming that the judge looked at the application and found no wrongdoing on his part. However, because the heritage foundation should not be privy to this information, it was sealed. This makes sense to me but in this case it should have been terminated, or dismissed, with prejudice. Can someone explain what’s going on!?
@Mayp – Sounds like you did a pretty good job of explaining it to yourself. This is a civil case in US District Court, DC District, filed by Heritage (Nile Gardiner of the Margaret Thatcher Center for something or other), because they kept getting shut down by Homeland on FOIA requests due to privacy laws. Heritage sued, saying Harry’s immigration records were in the “public interest,” and they wanted to see if he’d been given favorable treatment due to his royal status. Gardiner / Heritage said they were relying on Harry’s memoir. “Spare” detailing drug use, arguing Harry was likely dishonest about drug use on his immigration application.
Homeland turned over Harry’s immigration documents to Judge Carl Nichols after he decided he needed to conduct his own ‘in camera review’ of the immigration docs in question. The in camera review ensures the docs to be reviewed remain private while the judge makes a decision. The fact that the case has been “terminated” with sealed orders filed in the case, and the fact that Heritage has not been crowing about getting Harry’s immigration docs tells you everything you need to know. Recall that one of Heritage’s main arguments was Harry’s private docs were “in the public interest,” so I would have expected to see them if Heritage prevailed. At this point, it seems Heritage could appeal. Beyond that what recourse is there?
Thanks for the explanation, @Kirk. I guess I was just thinking that if our lines of thought are correct, the case should have been dismissed with prejudice.
Good. And I honestly think the end game was to force Harry to leave the U.S. and then harass him out of every commonwealth country if he tried to go there next. I loathe these people.
The Heritage Foundation needs to tread lightly these days as the pile-up of Clarence and Ginni Thomas’s ethics issues and a clear email/voicemail/paper trail of their involvement in it and Project 2025 grows.
I wonder whether they can/will appeal.
Do men have anchor babies or does that derogatory term only apply to female immigrants?
Anywhoo… Newsweek getting a story from the Heritage foundation about sealed orders is interesting. HF uses FOIA to obtain the most sensitive information at all levels of our government.
For the legal eagles: the HF Lost an appeal against the Department of Justice in March 2024, ending its efforts to obtain information about the FBI’s relationship with Meta.
Keep taking the L’s guys!