US government receives orders on Prince Harry's visa application

The US government received an order on a petition seeking to make Prince Harry's visa application public on Tuesday .

The Heritage Foundation  is seeking information from the government authorities whether the Duke of Sussex receive preferential treatment from the US government.

The hearing came at a time when Prince Harry was in the United Kingdom to testify before London High Court in his case against a newspaper group.

According to CNN, a federal judge gave the Department of Homeland Security until next Tuesday to decide how it will handle a conservative think tank’s request for teh Duke of Sussex's US immigration records.

The Heritage Foundation has asked the US government via the Freedom of Information Act to see his visa application, citing his admission of past recreational drug use in his memoir.

Judge Carl Nichols gave DHS until June 13 to determine whether or not it will expedite or respond to a request for the records.

CNN reported that several agencies within the department, including US Border Patrol, have denied the FOIA requests, but the agency’s headquarters has not yet made a determination.

It said DHS has noted that the US Customs and Border Protection agency originally denied the requests from Heritage because the group did not have Prince Harry’s authorization or consent to release the information.

“A person’s visa … is confidential,” DHS attorney John Bardo said in court Tuesday.

DHS attorneys have also said that an injunction to expedite the FOIA requests is not appropriate in the case since Heritage has, among other things, not shown how they will suffer irreparable harm if the information is not quickly released.