Prince Harry the subject of NEW court battle as US sued over his American visa
Prince Harry, 38, admitted taking marijuana, magic mushrooms and cocaine in his memoir Spare
PA
An American think tank is to sue the US Government over Prince Harry’s immigration files to confirm whether the 38-year-old admitted past illegal drug use on his visa application.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation has been calling for Washington to release the Duke of Sussex’s paperwork over the last few months as the think tank demands to know whether the father-of-two made the confession ahead of his move to California in 2020.
Prince Harry, 38, admitted taking marijuana, magic mushrooms and cocaine in his memoir Spare.
The Heritage Foundation filed a legal complaint against the Department of Homeland Security in an attempt to enforce a freedom of information request which will grant access to the Prince’s visa application.
The Duke of Sussex confessed to taking illicit substances in his Megxit memoir Spare and during interviews ahead of the book’s release in January
PAThe Washington-based think tank asked to know whether the estranged Duke had been “properly vetted before entering the United States”.
It added: “This request is in the public interest in light of the potential revocation of Prince Harry’s visa for illicit substance use and further questions regarding the Prince’s drug use.”
Applicants who admit to previous use of narcotics are generally denied entry to the US, immigration lawyers have claimed.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Page Six: "An admission of drug use is usually grounds for inadmissibility."
The Duke of Sussex could in theory be barred from applying for citizenship or even deported if he is found to have failed to disclose his past drug use.
Harry’s wife Meghan Markle is an American citizen and was born in Los Angeles.
His daughter Princess Lilibet was born in Santa Barbara but his son Archie was welcomed into the Royal Family at Portland Hospital in London.
The Duke previously claimed drug-use helped him deal with past trauma, claiming: “It removed it all for me and brought me a sense of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold on to for a period of time.”
The Washington-based think tank asked to know whether the estranged Duke had been “properly vetted before entering the United States”
PASources close to Harry previously told The Daily Telegraph that the Duke had been “truthful” on his visa application.
A US State Department spokesman also recently said: "Visa records are confidential under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases."
However, the Heritage Foundation has ramped up its efforts to ensure more transparency is brought to the conversation.
Nile Gardiner, director of the think tank’s Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom and a former foreign policy aide to the Iron Lady, said: “The Biden administration must assure the American people that the rule of law is applied equally with regard to immigration.”
GB News has approached the Sussexes for comment.