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The Joe Biden administration has been accused of “stonewalling” a legal bid to uncover details of Prince Harry’s US visa application using Freedom of Information laws.
A request to have the application fast-tracked on the grounds of exceptional public interest has been turned down, which has been described as an “outrageous” decision by the Washington-based think-tank pursuing the case.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation has now asked a judge to overturn the decision by the Department of Homeland Security and two of its agencies, with a hearing expected next month.
The Heritage Foundation demanded the immediate release of the Duke of Sussex’s visa records in March after he admitted to drug-taking in his memoir, Spare.
It argued that the Duke’s records should be made public because admissions of drug use are grounds for inadmissibility in visa applications.
Prince Harry has admitted to taking drugs including cocaine, cannabis and magic mushrooms.
Sources close to the Duke have insisted he was truthful about his drug use on his visa application, which raises questions about whether the Duke was given special treatment, the Foundation argues. It has asked whether he was granted a waiver by border officials.
Under US Freedom of Information laws, applications can be fast-tracked if there is “widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exist possible questions about the government’s integrity which affect public confidence”. The Heritage Foundation argued that the Prince Harry case had cleared that bar, but the fast-track application has been turned down on the grounds that British-based publishers including The Telegraph, which had demanded answers over the visa application, were not sufficiently mainstream in the US to count.
Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said: “The Biden administration is clearly stonewalling here and they are trying to avoid releasing any documents.
“They are trying to do so by undermining the credibility of the British Press, which is outrageous, and by concentrating their fire on the British Press even though we have submitted articles in the US press about the same subject.”
The Heritage Foundation has submitted Freedom of Information requests for the Duke’s visa application records to the Department of Homeland Security, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services and US Customs and Border Protection.
In its written opposition to the fast-track request, the Department of Homeland Security described The Telegraph and other British publications as “niche” and also said it was not persuaded that there were exceptional circumstances that made an urgent response necessary.
The think-tank will now apply for a hearing in front of a judge at the US District Court for the District of Columbia, at which it will ask the judge to overrule the three agencies.
If it fails, it could take months or even longer for them to make a decision on whether to release the Duke’s visa records.
Samuel Dewey, the attorney representing the Foundation, said: “The way it works here is that if you are asking for anything that is potentially significant you’re not going to get it unless you sue them.
“You can have a request that sits there for a year with pretty much nothing happening.
“This is an example of this administration’s unprecedented lack of transparency.”
Prince Harry moved to California in 2020 with his wife Meghan Markle. People who emigrate to the US are usually given a three-year visa, meaning he will need to renew his visa this year or apply for a Green Card or citizenship.
A new application is likely to lead to further scrutiny of Prince Harry’s visa status.
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