Prince Harry's US Visa Records at Center of New Lawsuit

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation is taking the federal government to court in an attempt to have records concerning Prince Harry's U.S. visa application released after the Duke of Sussex admitted in his memoir Spare to using drugs both in the U.S. and abroad. The Heritage Foundation is now questioning if the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) acted properly in granting Harry a visa when he and wife Meghan Markle moved to Montecito, California after stepping back from their duties as senior royals in 2020.

The Heritage Foundation and DHS officials will appear in federal court next week after the think tank filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last month to force the release of the prince's immigration records, CBS News reports. The Heritage Foundation cites "widespread public and press interest on the specific issue of whether DHS acted, and is acting, appropriately as regards the Duke of Sussex," but the DHS has declined as of this time to release the records.

"Widespread and continuous media coverage has surfaced the question of whether DHS properly admitted the Duke of Sussex in light of the fact that he has publicly admitted to the essential elements of a number of drug offenses in both the United States and abroad," the complaint reads. "United States law generally renders such a person inadmissible for entry into the United States. Intense media coverage has also surfaced the question of whether DHS may have improperly granted the Duke of Sussex a waiver to enter the country on a non-immigrant visa given his history of admissions to the essential elements of drug offenses."

The federal government's response questioned the lawsuit's merits and suggested the Heritage Foundation has not demonstrated irreparable harm in seeking a mandatory injunction, saying that U.S. Customs and Border Protection initially denied the request for records because "plaintiffs did not provide written authorization from the Duke of Sussex indicating that the Duke of Sussex consented to his information being released to plaintiffs." 

Harry wrote openly about his drug use in Spare. "Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time," he said at one point during the memoir. "At someone's house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more." The royal also claimed he had taken mushrooms at Courteney Cox's Los Angeles home previously. "We spotted a huge box of black diamond mushroom chocolates," he wrote. "Somebody behind me said they were for everybody. Help yourself, boys. My mate and I grabbed several, gobbled them, washed them down with tequila." The upcoming hearing will be held Tuesday in federal court in Washington, D.C.