President Donald Trump on Friday said that he isn't interested in deporting Prince Harry, who famously left Britain with his wife, Meghan Markle, in 2020, eventually settling in Montecito, California.
The Duke of Sussex is in hot water after conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation filed a lawsuit last year against the Department of Homeland Security to have his immigration records released following Harry admitting to illegal drug use in the past in his 2023 memoir "Spare."
"I don't want to do that," Trump told the New York Post on Friday after being asked if he would deport the royal. "I'll leave him alone. He's got enough problems with his wife. She's terrible."
Markle has criticized Trump in the past, calling him "misogynistic" and "divisive" during a TV appearance ahead of the 2016 election.
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In 2019, before a state visit to the U.K. during his first term as president, Trump called the Duchess of Sussex "nasty" over her remarks about him.
He then went on to meet with the royal family during the visit, minus Markle, who was with newborn Archie at the time.
He also told Piers Morgan in 2022 that Harry was "whipped like no person he had ever seen."
The Heritage Foundation in its lawsuit says that Harry may have lied on his immigration forms about his past drug use or was given preferential treatment by the government and called on the records to be released.
"I'll be urging the president to release Prince Harry's immigration records and the president does have that legal authority to do that," Nile Gardiner of the Heritage Foundation previously told the New York Post.
"It's important because this is an issue of the rule of law, transparency and accountability. No one should be above the law," Gardiner added. "Donald Trump is ushering in a new era of strict border control enforcement, and you know, Prince Harry should be held fully to account as he has admitted to extensive illegal drug use."
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This week a federal judge said he is "likely" to release Harry's immigration files after the first hearing in the royal's high-profile case since Trump took office.
U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols said Harry's files should be released "to the maximum extent possible," during Wednesday's hearing in Washington, D.C., according to a report from the New York Post, with the judge reasoning that he is "required to make public everything that can be made public" but would take care not to violate any privacy laws.
Last year during the campaign, Trump told Nigel Farage in an interview that the government would have to take the "appropriate action" if Harry was found to have lied on his immigration forms, but didn't explicitly say he would seek to deport him.
Trump also accused the Biden administration of "protecting" Harry, saying in a separate interview with the Daily Express in February 2024 "I wouldn't protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That's unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me."
On Friday, Trump conversely praised Prince William, with whom Harry has a long-running feud, as a "great young man."
Trump recently met with William in December in Paris when the two attended the reopening of the Notre Dame cathedral following its devastating fire.
Fox News' Michael Lee contributed to this report.
