Breaking: No drug use, special treatment apparent in Prince Harry’s visa request…..Read More

March 18 (UPI) — Prince Harry has no history of prior drug use or special treatment by immigration officials indicated in heavily redacted U.S. court documents that were released on Tuesday.

Harry no longer is part of Britain’s Royal Family, but he still is the Duke of Sussex while wife Meghan Markle is the Duchess of Sussex.

The pair moved into a home near Montecito, Calif., in July 2020, after previously renting a mansion in Beverly Hills.

Officials with the conservative Heritage Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain copies of visa application documents that might shed light on Harry’s move to the United States, NBC News reported.

The documents sought are held by the Department of Homeland Security, and Heritage Foundation officials were seeking information regarding rumored drug use by the youngest son of King Charles III, The Times reported.

The Heritage Foundation’s initial request for the documents was refused on the grounds that their release “could subject him [Harry] to reasonably foreseeable harm in the form of harassment as well as unwanted contact by the media and others,” Jarrod Panter, Department of Homeland Security chief FOIA officer, said.

Heritage Foundation attorneys filed a federal lawsuit and argued “intense public interest” in the matter trumps Harry’s right to privacy regarding whether or not he might have received preferential treatment while relocating to the United States.

Harry in a 2023 memoir titled “Spare” discussed prior drug use, including intake of cocaine, marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms when he was 17.

Of course I had been taking cocaine at that time,” Harry said. “At someone’s house, during a hunting weekend, I was offered a line, and since then I had consumed some more.”

He said he didn’t find cocaine to be “very fun” and it didn’t makes him “feel especially happy,” but it did make him feel “different.”

“That was my main objective,” he said. To feel. To be different.”

Although prior drug use does not preclude someone from legally entering the United States, concealing prior drug use on a visa application could trigger deportation.

“If he lied, that gets you deported,” Heritage Foundation attorney Samuel Dewey told reporters during a February news conference.

“People are routinely deported for lying on immigration forms,” Dewey said.

The Heritage Foundation received 82 pages of court documents on Tuesday but found they are heavily redacted.

More than half of information contained within the documents were blacked out, and the documents were related to the Heritage Foundation’s actions to obtain them.

None include Harry’s visa application, so the Heritage Foundation still does not know if the Biden administration might have intentionally overlooked his potential past
drug use.

The FOIA court filings were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 30, 2024, and name the DHS as the defendant.

DHS officials contested the release of the documents for two years, and Harry’s attorneys argued their release would not reveal any special treatment by the Biden administration and only would affirm Harry was truthful while seeking a visa.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols initially refused the Heritage Foundation’s request to access the documents but reversed his decision last week and ordered the redacted documents to be released on Tuesday.