In 1973, the Government created a task force to deal with overstayers, and they were empowered to conduct random checks on suspected overstayers. The first media record the Parliamentary Library could find around the Dawn Raids specifically—recognising that raids were actually probably occurring from the early 1970s—was 13 March 1974, and the headline was "Thirty-eight Islanders were arrested in a series of dawn raids today, in what police describe as the biggest clamp-down on illegal immigrants." Seventeen of the men, all of whom were between 20 and 30, were later released when it was found they had applied for extension of expired work permits. 