“Woke” British royal Prince Harry has put his U.S. visa “at risk” over his recent admission of drug use, according to reports.
Harry, the Duke of Sussex, recently admitted to taking drugs in his home country and in California.
However, a leading immigration expert has responded by suggesting that the admission could cost Harry his visa, and celebrity lifestyle in California with his wife Meghan Markle.
In his ghostwritten memoir Spare, Harry admits to abusing illegal drugs from the age of 17.
These admissions included tales of doing lines of cocaine and smoking cannabis at the elite Eton College boarding school.
However, he also admits to doing drugs at the royal residence of Kensington Palace and hallucinating on magic mushrooms at a party in California hosted by Courtney Cox in 2016, as a much older and supposedly responsible adult.
“Beside the toilet was a round silver bin, the kind with a foot pedal to open the lid,” recalls Harry, the fifth in line to the British throne.
“I stared at the bin. It stared back. Then it became . . . a head.
“I stepped on the pedal and the head opened its mouth. A huge open grin.
“I laughed, turned away, took a p***.”
“Now the loo [toilet] became a head too,” he added.
“The bowl was its gaping maw, the hinges of the seat were its piercing silver eyes. It said, ‘Aaah’.”
The prince may not have just further damaged his reputation with the embarrassing revelations, however.
An immigration expert is suggesting that Harry may have also put his U.S. visa — and, by extension, his new celebrity lifestyle in Montecito, California — in jeopardy.
“He would have been asked [about drug abuse when applying for his visa],” said Professor Alberto Benítez, who heads George Washington University’s Immigration Clinic, in comments to The Telegraph.
“If he was truthful in his answers, he should have been denied,” the professor claimed.
If the prince was not truthful, he went on, “[o]ne of the repercussions, whatever visa he has, is that it would be revoked, or he’ll be subject to being revoked because he lied in the application process.”
According to The Sunday Times, American regulations stipulate that “current and/or past actions, such as drug or criminal activities . . . may make the applicant ineligible for a visa.”
However, the U.S. State Department told the British newspaper that “[a]ll visa applications are adjudicated on a case-by-case basis.”
Moreover, another immigration lawyer consulted by The Telegraph, Chrissie Fernandez, said: “If Prince Harry ever possessed any illicit substances, even if he was not arrested, he would have been required to disclose that.”
But it is “unlikely that his case would be reopened if immigration authorities were to hear that he previously, years ago, used drugs,” she added.
