Prince Harry’s US visa could be revoked after he admitted using drugs when he was younger, a legal expert has warned.
The Duke of Sussex revealed he had done cocaine, smoked marijuana and experimented with magic mushrooms and ayahuasca in his autobiography Spare.
It has now prompted former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani to warn such a confession could jeopardize Harry’s family life in California.
Mr Rahmani told Page Six ‘an admission of drug use is usually grounds for inadmissibility’ and stressed there is ‘no exception for royalty for recreational use’.
It is not known what visa Harry used to move to California with Meghan Markle in 2020, but most people from the UK use an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
An ESTA application asks the question: ‘Have you ever violated any law related to possessing, using or distributing illegal drugs?’
People who have a past with drugs are not automatically barred from entering the US, but those who have struggled with addiction have to prove they have been sober for at least one year.
A DC-based conservative think tank, called the Heritage Foundation, wants to know how Harry answered this question or its equivalent.
Project director Mike Howell argues it is in the ‘public interest’ to know whether US officials ‘complied with the law in admitting Prince Harry’.
The US State Department has refused to answer questions about Harry’s immigration status, stressing ‘visa records are confidential’.
Other legal experts disagree that Harry coming clean about his drug use would have any impact on his visa.
Immigration lawyer Sam Adair and several more said it is ‘unlikely these admissions will present a problem’ because Harry has not been convicted of anything.
