British royal Prince Harry, formally known as the Duke of Sussex, has recently been open and forthcoming with the general public about his illicit drug use over the years in a memoir and media interviews, which raises the question of whether he was honest about that admitted drug use when seeking legal U.S. residency.

Unnamed sources close to the prince are now insistent that Harry was "truthful" with U.S. officials about his history of drug use when he applied for a visa to be a California resident, the Daily Mail reported.

Harry's admitted drug use in relation to his U.S. visa application, which typically can result in a barred entry for most migrants, became an issue following a Freedom of Information Act request from a conservative organization that has challenged the administration of President Joe Biden over its lax enforcement of immigration law requirements.

Prince Harry's admitted drug use

The Daily Signal reported last month that the Heritage Foundation Oversight Project filed the FOIA request about Prince Harry's drug use and visa application in February with two relevant agencies of the Department of Homeland Security – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Customs and Border Enforcement.

That request followed the release in January of Harry's memoir "Spare," as well as subsequent interviews in support of the book, in which the British royal spoke openly about his use of illicit drugs like cocaine and marijuana along with psychedelic hallucinogens like ayahuasca and mushrooms.

Typically, an admission of illicit drug use is disqualifying for U.S. visa applicants unless a special waiver can be obtained, and the HFOP sought to learn through its FOIA request whether Harry lied about his drug use on the official form or was honest and received special consideration due to his privileged status as British royalty and left-leaning ideology.

"He has no reasonable expectation of privacy because he’s commercialized every aspect of his life, which is his decision to make," Heritage Foundation attorney Samuel Dewey said of the Duke of Sussex. "And the second point is that there is a public interest. Did someone who’s very politically active, aligned with one agenda, get preferential treatment?"

"If a bunch of people are spending a lot of time to give him preferential treatment, they may not be able to spend that time processing an applicant who doesn’t have those issues, who did everything right," the attorney added.

Question relevant to Biden admin's enforcement of immigration laws

The Daily Mail reported that there are numerous examples of both foreign celebrities being denied entry into the U.S. over their illicit drug use as well as of their immigration documents being released in the public interest. However, it was also noted that exceptions are also made and there is a special waiver available to get around the prohibition.

"There is a waiver process and a lot of people get a waiver on a case-by-case basis. If Prince Harry was given a waiver, who authorized it? Was the correct protocol followed? It's something the American people deserve to know," Dewey told the U.K. outlet. "There is no suggestion Prince Harry did anything wrong and, if he was granted a waiver, he may not be aware of any political strings that may have been pulled, if indeed they were. But there is a danger he could become an unwitting pawn in an issue which has become a political hot potato."

The director of the Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, Nile Gardiner, told the Daily Mail of the FOIA request, "This is a much bigger issue than Prince Harry. It is about enforcing immigration law and ensuring that no one is above the law. Prince Harry is simply the tip of the iceberg."

"There are many who believe that under President Biden immigration laws have become lax and are not being properly implemented," he added. "Prince Harry openly talked about his drug use and he has done so for commercial and financial gain, to sell books. In our opinion, there is no case for privacy here."

Recent admissions seem to contradict 2020 legal filing

Multiple outlets have now reported that unnamed sources close to Prince Harry have told the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph that the Duke of Sussex was indeed "truthful" about his history of drug use when he filled out a U.S. visa application to become a lawful California resident a couple of years ago.

That may, in fact, be true, but Newsweek pointed out that if so, Harry seemed to suggest otherwise in an October 2020 court filing as part of a lawsuit he is engaged in against Rupert Murdoch over disputed allegations about his drug use in a 2002 article from the now-defunct News of the World tabloid.

The language of the filing, which was submitted to a court just seven months after Harry moved to the U.S., seems to indicate that the drug use allegations are all completely false and defamatory. Yet, the timeline of that disputed report appears to align with the prince's more recent public admissions of illicit drug use from the time that he was a teenager until now.

Were any "particular favors given" to the prince?

The Heritage Foundation's Gardiner told the Daily Beast, "The drug issue is a huge question. Applicants to the U.S. have to say if they have used drugs. If they say yes they have to fill out a much more detailed form. Sometimes they will be denied entry."

"For him to have got in may have required some kind of high-level intervention and we don’t know where that came from," he added. "What we are asking is whether he was open and transparent with the application, whether there were any particular favors given, was he treated differently to everybody else. We believe in the rule of law."