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Prince Harry‘s US visa is allegedly under review again.
According to The Sun, the royal’s controversial US visa application is once again under review, after the Trump administration uncovered 1007 documents on his file at the US Department of State.
A judge in Washington will now reportedly review the file and determine what should be made public.
The move comes after right-wing US think-tank Heritage Foundation sued the Department of State in January this year, claiming the 40-year-old concealed his past use of drugs, which should have disqualified him from obtaining a US visa.
In his 2022 memoir Spare, Harry admitted that in the past he’s experimented with multiple illicit drugs such as cocaine, magic mushrooms and marijuana.
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In 2023, after being refused access to Harry’s visa application to see if he declared this history of drug use, the Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank based in Washington, DC — launched a legal dispute against the State Department.
At the time, the director of the Heritage Foundation, Mike Howell, told The Herald Sun that ”Prince Harry either lied on his application, which can be rejected over drug use, or that he received special treatment as a royal and celebrity, which would be illegal.”
However, a spokesperson from the State Department said visa records are confidential and therefore, ”details of individual visa cases” cannot be discussed.
Legal experts seem to be divided over whether Prince Harry’s visa can be nullified over his confession.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Page Six in 2023 that ”an admission of drug use is usually grounds for inadmissibility”.
”That means Prince Harry’s visa should have been denied or revoked because he admitted to using cocaine, mushrooms and other drugs,” she continued.
But, at the time, high-profile attorney James Leonard said the Duke of Sussex was not at risk of having his visa revoked nor is he at risk of being deported from the US.
”I don’t see any issue with the disclosures in his memoir regarding recreational experimentation with drugs… You’ve got to give them [the US Immigration department] something that would trigger it, and revealing it in a book, that you experimented with drugs when you were a young man, I don’t think gets you there,” he told Page Six.
”Immigration is not going to do anything based on that. If he got arrested or if he got a DWI [Driving While Intoxicated], then we’re having a different conversation.”
