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U.S. Conservative Group Calls for Prince Harry to be Deported Over Past Drug Use
Prince Harry’s visa status is up for debate after he admitted to taking pot, shrooms, and other drugs.
Prince Harry’s visa should be denied and he should be deported from the U.S., a conservative group is demanding.
When Prince Harry detailed his history with pot and other drugs in his autobiography, he made heads roll, especially in conservative circles on both sides of the Atlantic. The Heritage Foundation—a conservative think tank in operation for over 50 years—called for the deportation of Prince Harry over his admissions to past drug use including pot and cocaine.
The Duke of Sussex, 38, is currently living in Los Angeles with his wife Meghan Markle and son, Archie. But Harry is living on a visa, and has no plans of seeking permanent U.S. residency or U.S. citizenship, despite being eligible. The couple quit the Royal Family and moved to California in January 2020, where they continued to be a focal point for tabloids and aggressive paparazzi.
A representative from The Heritage Foundation said the organization is in arms with the U.S. State Department, as they are refusing to release any details about Prince Harry’s visa application, The Mercury News reports.
The power couple is often the target of conservative media, which often sides with the Royal Family instead of Prince Harry. The Heritage Foundation entered the arena by challenging his visa status.
“This request is in the public interest in light of the potential revocation of Prince Harry’s visa for illicit substance use and further questions regarding the Prince’s drug use and whether he was properly vetted before entering the United States,” Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, told the Daily Mail.
In Prince Harry’s controversial autobiography Spare, which was published this past January, he revealed that he first snorted coke at age 17 and again on a few other occasions. He also toked up after his first date with Meghan Markle. “I started doing it recreationally and then started to realize how good it was for me,” Harry said. “I would say it is one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the traumas and the pains of the past.”
Prince Harry also detailed his adventures with shrooms, talking to the toilet and having strange visions. High Times has been following reports of his pot use since at least 2017. (Tyler Dooley, Meghan’s nephew and the son of Meghan’s half-brother Thomas Markle Jr., got into the cannabis industry back in 2015 and released the Markle Sparkle strain.)
Is Prince Harry’s Visa Truly at Risk?
But according to law, visa records are considered confidential. “Visa records are confidential under Section 222(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA); therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said.
Legal experts aren’t sure if Harry’s past drug use actually could threaten his visa status, allowing him to stay in the United States to live and work. “An admission of drug use is usually grounds for inadmissibility,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Page Six. “That means Prince Harry’s visa should have been denied or revoked because he admitted to using cocaine, mushrooms and other drugs.”
New Jersey-based attorney James Leonard, disagreed with Rahmani and said that Prince Harry’s visa status is not at risk.
“Absent any criminal charge related to drugs or alcohol or any finding by a judicial authority that Prince Harry is a habitual drug user, which he clearly is not, I don’t see any issue with the disclosures in his memoir regarding recreational experimentation with drugs,” Leonard said.