Former President Donald Trump has once again hinted that if he is re-elected president, Prince Harry may face deportation from the US if he is found to have lied about his drug use on his visa paperwork.
In an interview with GB News’ Nigel Farage which aired on Sky News on Wednesday morning, Farage asked Trump whether Prince Harry should have “special privileges” if it’s discovered he lied on his visa application — as the royal’s immigration status has become embroiled in a legal battle after he admitted to taking illegal drugs in his memoir.
“No. We’ll have to see if they know something about the drugs, and if he lied, they’ll have to take appropriate action,” Trump is quoted as saying in a preview of the interview, the New York Post reports.
When pressed on whether “appropriate action” might mean deportation, Trump did not provide a clear answer.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’ll have to tell me. You just have to tell me. You would have thought they would have known this a long time ago,” the former president said.
In Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, he wrote about previously taking drugs, including cocaine, cannabis and psychedelic mushrooms, which would be grounds for his American visa application to be rejected.
Trump, 77, has previously made comments about the Duke of Sussex’s immigration status, warning that if he is re-elected in 2024, Prince Harry would be “on his own” following his “unforgivable” betrayal of Queen Elizabeth II.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon. Hill, Md., last month, Trump criticised President Biden’s administration for being “too gracious” to the Sussexes ever since Harry and his American wife, Meghan Markle, moved to California in 2020.
“I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me,” the former president told the Express, as he claimed Biden’s administration had given the immigrant special privileges.
When asked about Biden’s approach to the Sussexes, Trump bashed the president’s policies, explaining, “I think they have been too gracious to him after what he has done.”
His comments come after Prince Harry’s immigration status became the centre of a lawsuit by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which has argued that the 39-year-old royal could not have legally entered the US because he wrote about taking illegal drugs in his memoir.
In Spare, Harry wrote that when he was younger, he had taken cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms, noting that the cocaine “didn’t do anything for me,” but “Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.”
The Heritage Foundation’s lawsuit argues that US law “generally renders such a person inadmissable for entry” to the country, but lawyers representing the Department of Homeland Security argued in court that saying something in a book wasn’t “sworn testimony or proof.”
The lawyers argued Prince Harry’s account could have been embellished to “sell books,” noting that “saying something in a book doesn’t necessarily make it true.”
Trump’s full interview with Farage will air on Sky News Australia at 8.30pm AEDT on Wednesday night.
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and has been reproduced with permission.
