The US government will appear in a federal court next Tuesday, June 6, to answer questions regarding Prince Harry’s visa application after he admitted using illegal drugs.
The Heritage Foundation, a Washington DC-based conservative think-tank, is suing Joe Biden’s administration to force officials to release the Duke of Sussex’s immigration files.
The organisation wants to know how the prince managed to get into the US after he confessed in his bombshell memoir Spare to taking cocaine, cannabis, and magic mushrooms.
The Heritage Foundation has said its case will be held in front of a federal judge on June 6 at 2.30pm in courtroom 17 of the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The news was revealed by Nile Gardner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, who also said it would be open to the press.
A decision to unseal immigration records could have implications for Harry’s status in the US given an admission of drug use can see a visa application rejected.
The Heritage Foundation is aiming to establish whether the duke’s drug revelations in Spare were also mentioned in his visa application.
The appeal to the court comes after the group failed for the application to be made public in an expedited form under the Freedom of Information Act in March.
In his autobiography Spare, Harry revealed that he first took cocaine on a shooting weekend at age 17. He did a ‘few more lines’ on other occasions.
He also admitted to hallucinating during a celebrity-filled event in California and smoking cannabis after his first date with Meghan.
And the Duke spoke about his ‘positive’ experience of psychedelic drug ayahuasca, saying it ‘brought me a sense of relaxation, release, comfort, a lightness that I managed to hold on to for a period of time’.
Harry made the comments in an interview with therapist Dr. Gabor Maté, an outspoken supporter of decriminalising drugs who has allegedly used Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness.
Harry told him: ‘(Cocaine) didn’t do anything for me, it was more a social thing and gave me a sense of belonging for sure, I think it probably also made me feel different to the way I was feeling, which was kind of the point.
‘Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.’
Under US law, anyone who admits to past abuse of illegal narcotics is generally denied entry to the country.
Applicants for a visa to live and work in America have to tick a box to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a question on past drug use. It reads: ‘Are you or have you ever been a drug abuser or addict?’
Answering yes can result in being denied a US visa, as happened in the case of Amy Winehouse in 2008 – causing her to cancel plans to attend the Grammy awards.
But an admission of drug use does not automatically ban you from the US for life. Any denial of entry can be overturned after an in-person interview at a US consulate or official immigration office, where a waiver can be issued.
The Heritage Foundation has argued that there is ‘immense public interest’ in learning how Harry answered the question on drugs in his application.
And they will no doubt have some confidence of succeeding in getting the documents unsealed, given the history of authorities releasing immigration documents about public figures.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services website has an electronic reading room which contains the files of some celebrities, such as the late musicians George Michael and John Lennon.