Owais Raja faced homelessness after his right to work, rent property and use the NHS were wrongly removed

An engineer who was facing homelessness after being deemed a security threat over a tax error has been given his visa in a U-turn by the Home Office.

Owais Raja, who trained Ministry of Justice engineers and whose profession is on the government’s list of shortage occupations, had his right to work, rent property and access the NHS wrongly removed from him two years ago after legally amending his tax records.

His son has been unable to have potentially life-saving treatment for a hole in his heart, and his wife has not been able to receive treatment for her severe health problems. The family has been forced into a state of destitution, unable to leave the UK without accepting a terrorism-related visa refusal that would make it impossible for Raja to live or work in or travel to any country with visa conditions.

The Home Office has not fully explained how someone whose character and conduct it had insisted for two years was too bad to remain in the UK is now welcome.

It has also not clarified why Raja received his visa despite all cases involving the draconian terrorism-related paragraph 322(5) of immigration rules having been frozen until the conclusion of a much-delayed review into its use by the Home Office.

Raja, who is from Pakistan, said that while he was delighted his “hell-like experience” was over, he no longer had any faith in the British state and would seek employment abroad.

“My skills are in such short supply in the UK that for the past two years I’ve received between five to seven email approaches a day from employment agencies,” he said. “I wanted to make my life in the UK and contribute, but I don’t feel safe here any more. The Home Office has behaved in such a cruel, legally indefensible and economically illogical way that I have completely lost faith in the British state.”

Raja said that during his “living nightmare” many friends and colleagues from around the world had asked him if they should move to the UK. “They are almost all on the British government’s list of shortage occupations too but I told them all that they should not come here,” he said.

“Word is spreading among the global network of highly skilled migrants: Britain isn’t a safe or just country to bring their talents to.”

However, in a breach of data security, Raja was sent someone else’s expired passport when he received his biometric resident’s permit on Monday.

The passport, belonging to a Kurdistani woman from Halabja, was valid for a year from 18 March 2013 to 2014. The confidential and personal data a passport contains would enable a serious breach of immigration security to occur.

Luke Pollard, Raja’s MP, said: “Owais’s case suggests that the Home Office is cynically – and literally – trying to starve out people who have a legal right to be here. They are going to the extent of wrongly twisting a piece of legislation intended to protect us from international terrorists, to turn legal migrants into illegal migrants.

“Paragraph 322(5) is being used against highly skilled migrants whose skills are often on the government list of shortage occupations. This disproportionate and wrong use of the power is not only morally wrong but it is economically damaging to the UK.”

Yvette Cooper, the chair of the Commons home affairs select committee, said: “It is shocking that the review [into whether the government is using paragraph 322(5) proportionately] still isn’t complete and that families are stuck in limbo, often losing their jobs and access to vital public services while they wait. Too often the Home Office only responds when cases hit the media rather than sorting them out in advance.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Having considered all the evidence from Mr Raja’s latest application, we have granted his application due to his family’s personal circumstances.”