The US government could be forced to unseal Prince Harry’s US visa application in court following his drug-taking revelations in his memoir Spare.
A federal judge will hear the case on June 6, Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Centre for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation, said.
The think tank has been looking to confirm the Duke of Sussex’s use of cocaine, marijuana, and magic mushrooms was correctly detailed on his visa application, the Daily Express US reports.
US visa applications can be denied over drug taking, although it is not a hard-and-fast rule.
Mr Gardiner, formerly an aide to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, tweeted on Tuesday: “Prince Harry immigration records case will be held in Washington, DC Federal Court in front of a US Federal Judge.”
The Heritage Foundation has been a heavy critic of Harry’s drug revelations after they were detailed in Spare in January.
Earlier this year, an immigration expert told The Telegraph that the Duke should have been denied residency in the US if he failed to disclose his drug use and could see it revoked if he “lied”.
But a source close to Harry said the 38-year-old had been “truthful” when he told US officials about his past drug use.
The Duke described how he used drugs as a way of dealing with his mother Princess Diana’s death in his memoir Spare.
Harry, who was just 12 years old when Diana died in 1997 in a Paris car crash, also noted his past dealings with drugs during a “therapy session” with trauma expert Dr Gabor Mate.
“[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,” he told Dr Mate.
“Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.”
He added of taking psychedelics: “I started doing it recreationally and then started to realise how good it was for me, I would say it is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and pains of the past.”
Anyone applying to settle either temporarily or permanently in the US must answer questions about their history of drug use.
US immigration laws state that any foreigner “determined to be a drug abuser” is classed as “inadmissible”, though officials are afforded discretion to waive this rule.
Follow our social media accounts here on facebook.com/ExpressUSNews and @expressusnews
