Henry Nicholls/Reuters
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, pictured in March 2023.
CNN
—
to Prince Harry US immigration records must be opened at light of revelations about drug use in his recent book, a conservative think tank will argue in a federal court next week.
The Heritage Foundation is suing the US government to find out if it acted properly when it granted the Duke of Sussex a US visa. Under US immigration law, evidence of past drug use can be grounds to deny an application.
The case will be heard before a federal judge on June 6 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The Heritage Foundation filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act, trying to force the government to release Harry’s immigration file. “The requested information is of great public interest,” reads an amended complaint filed on May 5.
“The extensive and continuous media coverage raised the question of whether DHS [Department of Homeland Security] The Duke of Sussex was properly admitted in light of the fact that he has publicly admitted to significant elements of a number of drug offenses both in the United States and abroad,” it continued.
The original request for Harry’s records was denied because Harry did not indicate that he “consented to the release of his information,” the US Justice Department said in court papers.
In addition, the DOJ argues that “speculative citations regarding Prince Harry’s visa status are insufficient to meet the criteria” to speed up the document release process.
The Heritage Foundation has long been one of the most influential conservative think tanks in Washington. Nile Gardiner, director of the foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, tweeted on Thursday that there was a public interest in disclosing Harry’s records.
“Given his widespread acceptance of drug use, which is normally disqualifying for entry into the United States, Americans deserve answers to the serious questions raised by the evidence,” he wrote in a post on Twitter. “Did DHS in fact look the other way, play favorites, or fail to respond appropriately to any potential misstatements by Prince Harry?”
CNN has reached out to a representative for Prince Harry for comment.
Harry recently admitted to taking various recreational party drugs his explosive memoir “Spare,” published in January.
The Duke of Sussex has admitted to taking cocaine, smoking marijuana and trying magic mushrooms. Harry, who moved to California with Meghan in 2020, opened up about his experiences with cocaine as a teenager.
“Of course. I was doing cocaine around this time. At someone’s country house, on a shooting weekend, I was offered a line, and I’ve done a few since,” Harry revealed.
“It wasn’t much fun, and it didn’t make me particularly happy, because it seemed to make everyone around me happy, but it made me feel different, and that was the main goal.”
Harry describes himself as a “very sad seventeen-year-old boy who is willing to try almost anything to change the status quo.”
Elsewhere in the autobiography, the fifth in line to the throne discusses graduating from smoking to avoiding weed during his days at Eton College, as well as revealing that he tried magic mushrooms in a travel to the United States.
Harry said he briefly stayed at actor Courteney Cox’s house where “we found a big box of black diamond mushroom chocolates” and he and a friend ate a lot and “washed them down with tequila .”
Prince Harry’s autobiography isn’t the first time the royal has touched on his recreational drug use when he was younger.
He used to spoke with Oprah Winfrey how he abused drugs and alcohol in his late 20s and early 30s as a coping mechanism against the pressures of royal life.
“I’m ready to drink, I’m ready to do drugs,” he said. “I’m willing to try and do things that make me feel less like I do.”
