Prince Harry may have lost the ‘upper hand’ in his battle to keep his immigration documents secret after Donald Trump’s thumping election victory and now faces a ‘fight’ to remain in the US, experts told MailOnline today.
Beverly Hills attorney Alphonse Provinziano, a leading lawyer with years working on international family law disputes for the rich and famous, believes the Duke of Sussex could spend the next four years of a Trump presidency battling deportation.
Harry has lost the ‘protection’ of the Biden administration, according to the Heritage Foundation. The Washington-based conservative think tank is fighting in the courts to have the Duke of Sussex’s visa documents released so they can see if he admitted his historic narcotic use.
Mr Provinziano. who runs the LA firm Provinziano & Associates, told MailOnline that while Trump is in the White House – and the Heritage Foundation refusing to lie down – Harry faces a genuine battle to stay in the US – even though his wife is American and his children are dual citizens.
‘One unlikely loser of the 2024 US presidential election is Prince Harry. Trump has repeatedly said that he thinks Harry should not be allowed to stay in the United States since he “betrayed the Queen” and possibly was not forthcoming about his past drug use on his visa application’, he said.
‘Prince Harry’s lawyers will be busy over the next four years, as Trump has made it quite clear that if he returned to office, he would seek to have Harry removed from the country’.
‘The Biden administration had shielded Harry, and a lawsuit by the Heritage Foundation seeking more information was dismissed, but Trump may have the upper hand if it turns out that Harry was not forthcoming about his past drug use on his visa application, although he’s admitted it in his autobiography and various interviews over the years’.
Harry moved to Montecito with Meghan Markle and Archie in 2020 but his 2023 memoir Spare reveals he took cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms as a younger man.
Visa applicants must by law declare whether they have taken drugs.
If it is found that Harry misrepresented his prior drug use on his visa application and a disclosure was required, ‘this could be grounds for the government to pursue his deportation’, Mr Provinziano said.
He added: ‘The Trump administration had vowed to remove those not here lawfully and Prince Harry may be on the chopping block.’
Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet are dual citizens of the United States and the United Kingdom.
But the family lawyer added that wouldn’t automatically allow Harry to stay in the country if he had misrepresented information on his visa application.
‘If it is revealed that Harry misrepresented himself on his application or was granted special accommodations generally unavailable to others with similar histories, there could be a public outcry,’ Mr Provinziano said.
‘It may appear unfair, especially considering the many people who seek lawful entry to the United States and are subject to strict considerations.’
There have been claims that the couple’s decision to buy a home in Portugal could be related. An insider told the Daily Mail’s Richard Eden: ‘We can expect to see more of Harry back in Britain in years to come.’
The same source had said this was in part because the Sussexes had been making increasingly ‘desperate’ efforts to extend olive branches across the Atlantic. It followed a string of hostile comments from the Trump family.
It came as the Heritage Foundation said the political change in Washington DC means it is more likely to win its long-running bid to see the Duke of Sussex‘s immigration records, which until now has been blocked by the outgoing president’s administration.
Speaking to DailyMail.com after Trump’s historic victory, Nile Gardiner, Director of The Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, said he believes there is now a ‘strong possibility’ the think tank will be able to successfully appeal the decision.
Harry’s visa application was first called into question after he admitted in his 2023 memoir to using various drugs recreationally – something he would’ve been required to disclose in immigration documents.
The right-wing think tank claimed Harry’s admissions could have made him ineligible for entry to the US and sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after the agency, which oversees immigration, refused to disclose a Freedom of Information request for Harry’s files.
In September a judge ruled that the files are to remain private for now – a decision Heritage is now appealing.
‘I do think there’s a strong possibility that this could happen. It’s the president’s prerogative,’ Gardiner said.
‘Also the new Homeland Security Secretary could order a review of Harry’s immigration application.
‘There are multiple things that could happen but it would be in the best interests of the American people if the Trump administration releases Prince Harry’s records for public scrutiny and Harry should be held to account’.
According to Gardiner, the Biden White House ‘has bent over backwards to protect Prince Harry and that protection is going to come to an end after the inauguration’.
‘Releasing Harry’s immigration records would send a very strong message about applying the rule of law equally to everyone.
‘There’s a clear public interest in their release. If Harry has nothing to hide he should support the release of the records’, he added.
Gardiner predicted the files will be made public in the next year and that there would be ‘growing calls’ to do so from the Republican-controlled Congress.
The feud between Trump and Harry dates back to the 2016 election when the former president called Meghan ‘nasty’ after she called him ‘divisive’ and ‘misogynistic’.
Speaking in February Trump said he ‘wouldn’t protect’ Harry if he won a second term because he ‘betrayed the Queen‘.
‘That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me,’ Trump said.
Asked about it in an interview with Nigel Farage, Trump said he would take ‘appropriate action’ if Harry was found to have lied.
Trump’s son Eric has been more blunt and has said his father would ‘happily’ deport the Duke – and that Britain wouldn’t want him either.
Chris Edelson, a professor of government at American University, told DailyMail.com that ‘of course’ Trump could remove Harry.
‘Not in a normal system but ours is not normal anymore,’ he said
‘The President can do whatever they want as long as people go along with it’.
But Michael Wildes, a New York based immigration lawyer who worked with former First Lady Melania Trump to get her parents a green card, said that the former President’s views about immigration were more shrewd than people might think.
He said that Trump had a ‘very sophisticated view of clients who hail from significant interests and certainly a member of the royal family would be handled more in a sophisticated fashion’.
‘He could allow Harry to stay as a favor for King Charles,’ he said. ‘He may just pardon the Prince from any domestic crimes.
‘I’ve worked with Mr. Trump personally on very delicate matters in the past relating to immigration and he literally has a Trump card in these matters’.
Wildes, whose father was John Lennon’s immigration lawyer and managed to get him to stay in the US in 1975 despite the authorities starting deportation proceedings over his UK marijuana conviction, said that Harry would have just a few days to get out of America if he was on a visa that was revoked.
But if Harry is on a green card he could face a special immigration trial where he would be entitled to a ‘very strong defense’, Wildes said.
Melissa Chavin, a UK-based US immigration lawyer, said it could be even easier for Trump to kick out Harry from the country if he was in the US on an A-1 visa, which is for heads of state.
Chavin said: ‘All Trump has to do is tell his Department of State we don’t accept what the British government says about Harry.
‘They could say well this is only for working royals.
‘They could say he’s involved in espionage or terrorism or it’s counter to foreign policy for him to be doing drugs and be in the country.
‘They can make him persona non grata – they can do whatever they want and the determination is non reviewable. Nobody can look at that.
‘If Trump wants to be super vindictive he could do that. That’s the scary thing that could happen to Harry’.
