President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to rule out deporting Prince Harry while also taking a verbal jab at his wife and former actress Meghan Markle.
Harry’s immigration status is currently being challenged in Washington, D.C., with the Heritage Foundation claiming that he may have concealed past illegal drug use, which could have disqualified him from obtaining a U.S. visa, the New York Post reported.
However, the president told the outlet on Friday that he has no intention of deporting Harry.
“I don’t want to do that. I’ll leave him alone,” Trump said about the self-exiled royal. “He’s got enough problems with his wife. She’s terrible.”
Trump took the opportunity to praise Harry’s estranged older brother, William, whom he met during a private meeting in Paris last December at the reopening ceremony of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, which had been gutted by a fire about five years ago.
“I think William is a great young man,” he said.
The Duke of Sussex and his liberal American wife have expressed their disapproval of Trump over the years, including a notable moment when the Duchess referred to the president as “divisive” and “misogynistic.” Trump, in response, has accused Harry of being “whipped” by his wife: “I think poor Harry is being led around by the nose.”
Heritage referenced Harry’s autobiography Spare, in which he admitted to using cocaine, cannabis, and psychedelics when it filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security last year to compel the release of his U.S. visa records, The Post reported.
“Anyone who applies to the United States has to be truthful on their application, and it is not clear that is the case with Prince Harry,” Heritage’s Nile Gardiner told the London Daily Telegraph.
The conservative think tank argues that Harry received preferential treatment from the Biden administration after he and Meghan relocated to California in 2020 following their contentious “Megxit” departure from the royal family.
While Trump apparently isn’t interested in deporting the prince, his administration is nevertheless busy deporting thousands of others in the country illegally.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is on track to arrest approximately one million illegal immigrants by the end of the Trump administration—an impressive number, though still short of President Donald Trump’s goal, according to a report this week.
The update comes as Republicans in the House and Senate push to include provisions for border security, deportation, and additional funding in an upcoming spending package, which could lead to a significant increase in ICE arrests, Just the News reported.
Before February 1, ICE regularly updated its daily figures on arrests and detainers nationwide. However, this practice stopped earlier this week on its X account, which now focuses on highlighting the arrest of the most dangerous criminal figures.
The agency’s most recent enforcement update, covering January 31, reported 864 arrests and 621 detainers. The first such update appeared on January 23, showing 538 arrests. Daily arrests peaked at 1,179 on January 27. Despite the shift in reporting, Homan reassured that ICE’s efforts are ongoing and that arrest numbers have not decreased, Just the News added.
“I think the arrest numbers I looked at, I just talked about this morning. I think the arrests are right around over 11,000 so far since day one,” Homan told reporters on Thursday.
Excluding Thursday figures and counting from January 20, the 11,000 arrests would average nearly 650 per day. If this rate continues, Trump would be on track to arrest just under 1 million illegal immigrants during the remainder of his term.
However, the president has expressed a goal of deporting as many as 20 times that amount. Fortunately for Trump, the latter half of his first 10 days appears to show an increase in the pace of arrests.
