#redactions

The judge, who sits in Washington, approved the redactions suggested by the Department of Homeland Security and said they were ‘appropriate’.

While it is not clear what material will be released, it could include forms which indicate whether Harry said ‘no’ when asked if he was a drug user.

Lawyers for DHS have previously said that three items will be released with redactions but a fourth must remain private.

The right-wing Heritage Foundation sued the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last year after the agency, which oversees immigration in America, refused a Freedom of Information request for Harry’s files.

Heritage claims that Harry may have lied on the forms under the section which asks if he had been a drug user.

In both his memoir, Spare, and his Netflix TV series Harry talked about using cannabis, cocaine and magic mushrooms.

In his order, Judge Nichols, who was appointed by Donald Trump, said: ‘The government has provided the court with its proposed redactions to the documents…those redactions appearing appropriate, the government is ORDERED to lodge on the docket the redacted versions of those documents no later than March 18, 2025’.

The case has caused embarrassment and consternation for Harry and raised questions about whether he could be deported if he was found to have lied.

But President Trump recently said he would not order him out of the country, while taking a swipe at Meghan, who he called 'terrible'.

Trump said he was only giving Harry a break because ‘he’s got enough problems with his wife’.

In September Judge Nichols had refused the request from Heritage to release all the documents because the Duke had a right to privacy.

But after a hearing he reconsidered and said he wanted to reveal as much as he could.

‘In my view that has to happen’, Judge Nichols said during a previous hearing adding that wanted to make the ‘maximum amount’ of material public that he could.

Judge Nichols did however say he did not want to reveal Harry’s immigration status, meaning that there could be heavy redactions on some files.

Speaking after that hearing, Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at Heritage, appealed to Trump to make the files public.

The president had put ‘border security and the application of the rule of law a top priority’.

In the past Harry has been frank about his drug use and once said that cannabis helped heal the trauma of the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

The Duke said that using ayahuasca, a psychedelic drug, he realized that his mother wanted him to be ‘happy’.

That means Harry’s US visa application in March 2020 could show he ticked the ‘no’ box on questions about his drug use, Heritage claims.

In previous legal filings, DHS said that the records at issue are ‘particularly sensitive’ because they would ‘reveal Harry’s (immigration) status in the United States’.

DHS wrote: ‘Even though he is a public figure, Prince Harry still maintains a privacy interest in these types of records and in his immigration or visa status generally.

‘Even if public figures may have a diminished expectation of privacy, they do not surrender their privacy interests entirely’,

The filing added that ‘were this not the case, a requester could go on a fishing expedition for (government) records for any celebrity at all’.

The original request sought to reveal whether Harry, who moved to the US after quitting being a working member of the British royal family, was getting ‘preferential treatment’.

Heritage has merely ‘recounted a litany of allegedly suspicious circumstances (that) lacked any substantiation’, DHS said.

DHS has also dismissed the Heritage Foundation’s claims as a ‘bare suspicion of government misconduct’ and making Harry’s paperwork public would not shed any ‘meaningful light’ on how it operates.

Harry’s representatives have declined to comment on the case.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67302535/heritage-foundation-v-us-department-of-homeland-security/?filed_after=&filed_before=&entry_gte=&entry_lte=&order_by=desc