Despite potential visa issues following Donald Trump’s re-election, Prince Harry has pledged to stay in the US. The Duke of Sussex, 40, who has resided in Montecito, California, with Meghan Markle since 2020, confirmed that they plan to continue living in the country where he and his children “very much enjoy living”.
Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday, the Duke expressed his delight at being able to do activities with his two children – Archie-Harrison Mountbatten and Princess Lilibet – that he “undoubtedly wouldn’t be able to do in the UK”. He stated: “I very much enjoy living here and bringing up my kids here.”
He further added that now he and his family are settled in the country, his focus is on “being the best husband and the best dad that I can be”.
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Prince Harry has seldom returned to the UK since moving stateside nearly five years ago, only making brief visits for significant events like Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and others honouring his late mother Princess Diana. However, his residency in the US has been criticised by the hard-right US-based thinktank the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the controversial Project 2025, which has questioned his visa.
The think-tank previously highlighted a section of the Prince’s 2023 memoir Spare where he admits to using marijuana, cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms, reports the Mirror.
The Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit to compel a US judge to disclose whether Prince Harry officially declared his drug use on visa applications was dismissed. Judge Carl Nichols ruled in September, stating that the general public “does not have a strong interest in disclosure of the duke’s immigration records”.
He further noted: “Like any foreign national, the duke has a legitimate privacy interest in his immigration status.”
Nichols concluded that the interest in making Prince Harry’s immigration records public is “outweighed by the duke’s privacy interest”. Despite this, The Heritage Foundation has filed a new court document seeking to reopen the case, claiming the Biden administration prevented lawyers from viewing private submissions made to the judge.
Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation, suggested that with Donald Trump’s election, “we will see the release of Harry’s records by the next US administration”.