A four-and-a-half-year-old girl with autism, born in the UK and who cannot communicate, understand language or feed herself, could be deported to a country in which she risks attack and persecution.

Even the smallest change to the daily routine of Manha Majid triggers an extreme reaction that causes her to scream incessantly, stop sleeping and eating, and to keep her eyes closed for hours at a time.

Having spent more than two years building a support system involving the local authority, doctors and her school, her Pakistani parents fear for Manha’s life if they are deported.

“Manha will be at high risk of being attacked back home because she will be considered as less than human,” said her father, Majid Akhtar. “Autism is not understood at all in Pakistan. If we have to return to Pakistan and her life becomes unrecognisable to her, I can’t see how she will cope.”

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Manha risks deportation with her parents because of two errors made by her father’s accountants in 2010-2011, and 2012-2013. The mistakes were noticed by the Home Office in 2016 when Akhtar, who has been in the UK since 2007, applied for indefinite leave to remain.

When alerted to his case, HMRC decided that Majid’s tax discrepancy required no investigation or penalty. Penalties are levied if errors are found to be due to a lack of “reasonable care” or are deliberate or have been concealed.

“I’m an IT guy. I was paying my accountants to understand my taxes,” said Akhtar. When the discrepancy was flagged by the Home Office, Akhtar hired a chartered accountant who confirmed that the previous accountants had made mistakes. Despite both Akhtar and his solicitor trying to find them, however, the original accountants have disappeared.



Akhtar has now been unable to work for two years and is liable to be deported at any time. He must regularly attend a reporting centre with his wife, a trip that takes more than five hours by public transport. He has spent about £20,000 unsuccessfully appealing against the Home Office’s decision and is now waiting for the decision of an appeal on human rights grounds.

“My wife is seriously depressed and I am distressed and disheartened,” he said. “I have lived in the UK for 11 years and not committed a single offence, not even a driving offence, and now I’m a criminal. I’m good for nothing.

“Survival is tough. I have had to borrow around £20,000 from family and friends,” Akhtar said. “It is destroying me to have to borrow this money. I would leave tomorrow if it was not for my daughter,” he added. “Survival is tough for us here. But survival for her in Pakistan would be impossible.”

Akhtar came to the UK in 2007 to study for his master’s degree in advanced computer science at the University of Leicester. He set up his own computer consultancy in 2010, earning about £20,000. At the same time, he worked his way up the management structure of Domino’s Pizza, becoming area manager for Derbyshire in 2015, earning £45,000. He closed his consultancy in 2015 to concentrate on his management career.



In 2012, Akhtar returned to Pakistan to get married. His wife, Kiran Majid, was issued a dependant visa. When the couple later extended their visas, they were told they would be eligible for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in five years’ time. Their daughter, a Pakistani national, was issued a visa in 2014.

“That means the Home Office has checked my history three times since the accountants made their mistake and have not considered it to be problematic,” said Akhtar. “But when I applied for ILR, suddenly they decide to exercise their discretionary powers and, in my refusal letter, say that I am ‘a threat to national security’ under paragraph 322 (5) of the Immigration Act.”

Paragraph 322 (5) was designed to tackle criminals and those judged a threat to national security. Tax error rectification is not illegal or unlawful, but the campaign group Highly Skilled Migrants says the paragraph is increasingly used to deny ILR to highly skilled migrants.

The controversial paragraph comes with devastating conditions. Applicants become ineligible for any other UK visa. Many are given 14 days to leave, while others are allowed to stay and fight their cases but not to work. Only a few are allowed to appeal and work. In addition, paragraph 322 (5) means that migrants who have returned home are highly unlikely to get a visa to visit or work anywhere else in the world.

Highly Skilled Migrants, a group of more than 600 doctors, engineers, IT professionals, teachers and lawyers, is challenging the Home Office in the courts over what it says is the increasing use of the paragraph.

After Akhtar was refused ILR in 2016, his employers used their own lawyers to try to get him a work permit. When that failed – because paragraph 322 (5) had been served – the company was forced to let him go or pay a substantial fine.

The HMRC says it cannot comment on individual cases. A Home Office spokesperson said: “Complex Tier 1 applications require detailed consideration and verification of evidence with HMRC. These robust checks are essential to avoid the potential abuse of our immigration or tax system. Where such abuse is identified, we will act accordingly.”