Donald Trump surprised royal fans last weekend when he confirmed he would “leave” Prince Harry and his US visa alone.
While many believed Trump would pursue the case of Harry’s visa and deport him if it was discovered he had lied on his application about his previous drug use, it turns out the US President is no longer considering this route.
In an interview with the New York Post, Trump said he will leave the Duke of Sussex, 40, alone as the duke has, in Trump’s words, a “terrible” wife – a savage dig at Meghan Markle, 43, who the president famously dislikes.
However, while some may think Trump has done Harry a favour by not threatening deportation, one royal expert believes the president’s decision was pragmatic and is not a victory for Harry to celebrate.
Writing for GB News, Lee Cohen said that Trump has not given them a controversy to use for their publicity and has “denied them the stage they so desperately crave”.
Cohen also said that thanks to Trump and his decision not to pursue deporting Harry, the couple no longer have a “crisis to exploit” and cannot present themselves as victims.
He wrote: “Trump’s decision to spare Prince Harry deportation is pragmatic. Rather than turning him into a martyr, Trump strategically avoided giving the Sussexes another opportunity to play the persecuted couple.”
While Trump may have said he isn’t going to focus his energy on the duke’s visa documents, it appears this same approach isn’t in place elsewhere.
In a fresh blow to the Duke this week, Judge Carl J. Nichols has ordered the US government to look into which documents related to Prince Harry’s visa can be released to the public.
The decision has been made in response to a lawsuit brought by the Heritage Foundation think tank group against the US Department of Homeland Security, which is seeking to disclose Harry’s immigration papers to reveal whether he lied about past drug-taking – something he later disclosed in his 2023 memoir Spare.
The judge ruled last year that the records should remain private, however after a fresh challenge has agreed to release the “maximum amount possible” about how the Duke got into the US.
This is because it is a requirement to declare previous drug use on US visa applications to enter the country. It is not known whether Harry declared his own background with drugs on his application.
The duke has lived in Montecito, California, since 2020 with his American wife Meghan Markle and their two children Prince Archie, five, and Princess Lilibet, three.