Sarah said the police officer was adamant: she could not leave until her visa status was confirmed. She called Mark at home. He contacted the immigration department and, after a long wait, obtained her visa details. Sarah was finally allowed her to move on. She was distraught, and 90 minutes late for work. "She felt like Big Brother's watching, like she wasn't really welcome," Mark said, adding Sarah did not wish to speak to the media. "It makes you feel [like] you're a foreigner, therefore you're always guilty of being here illegally unless you can prove otherwise." Last week's cancelled visa-check operation in Melbourne, after a press release suggested immigration officials would question "any individual we cross paths with" was not just a PR disaster for the new Australian Border Force.

It reminded Australians that they are actually quite attached to their civil liberties, including the right to wander the streets unimpeded by people in uniforms. And many could not shake the feeling that a scenario in which average Joes were asked to produce their papers was not just one dreamed up by an errant press officer, but the logical conclusion of the current hard-boiled political climate surrounding border protection. As the government scurried to dial down the public tumult last week, it pointed out that joint operations of the type planned for Melbourne were, in fact, quite common. She felt like Big Brother's watching, like she wasn't really welcome. *Mark, speaking of his partner's experience Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said Border Force officers taking part in Operation Fortitude, as it was dubbed, had in their sights only taxi drivers who did not have the right to work in Australia. Drivers would be referred to them by police.

But as outlandish as sweeping visa checks may seem in the free world, the British experience shows they are not inconceivable. In 2013, officials conducted spot visa checks around London tube stations, forcing then British immigration minister Mark Harper to deny the crackdown involved, as critics claimed, "stopping every person with a black face". Rather, the operation was driven by intelligence, and targeted people who "behaved in a very suspicious way", Harper reportedly said, adding the checks were not random. An NSW Police spokesman confirmed Sarah was detained for a visa check. He said temporary foreign drivers are obliged to prove their visitor status if requested by police, to ensure they are lawfully entitled to drive in NSW. For many years, Australian immigration officials have taken part in joint visa compliance operations in every state and territory.

One Sydney taxi driver who contacted Fairfax Media reported twice being in a group of about 20 drivers stopped by police in central Sydney and checked by officials from immigration, tax and social security agencies. He said each incident, which occurred in the past few years, took drivers off the road for up to an hour. Similar taxi operations have long been conducted in other cities including Brisbane and Melbourne. NSW Taxi Council chief executive Roy Wakelin-King said such checks were "relatively routine" and ensure only those authorised to live and work in Australia are driving cabs. Victoria Police said taxi industry compliance involving immigration officials was conducted "in a range of locations across the state". In the year to June 2014, 3310 "unlawful non-citizens" were nabbed through field operations or referrals by police, figures from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection show. So if the practice is so commonplace, then why did Operation Fortitude turn into an embarrassing political pratfall?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott said random visa checks by Border Force were never contemplated – in fact, legal experts say they would have been illegal. Abbott conceded, after government officials first pointed the finger at the media, that the press release was "very badly worded". But the confusion those words created fed into a growing unease about the menacingly named Border Force – and fuelled questions about precisely what the organisation does. Dutton, on Thursday, announced that Border Force, which merges existing immigration and customs functions, had helped find 100 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a foreign luxury yacht that berthed at the Gold Coast. It is unsurprising that border officials dealing with international drug syndicates or dangerous people smugglers might wear uniforms and carry guns.

But when the Border Force began in July it adopted a new paramilitary style that critics say is unseemly for officials checking tourist visas. More than $6 million was spent kitting out officials with new uniforms, insignia, name badges, buttons and safety helmets. The Border Force's current recruitment drive is seeking 150 new staff willing to "complete Use of Force training" and be willing to "use personal defence equipment, including a firearm". The department says not all staff receive such training. Border Force insiders have questioned the description of their employer as "paramilitary", saying many officers don't wear the full uniform and conduct essentially the same tasks as they did before the merger. The Law Council of Australia has questioned why immigration bureaucrats working in policy and regulation need beefed-up powers previously used only in border protection, such as the power to assume a false identity and gain access to a person's stored data.

In a submission in April to a Senate committee examining the laws, the council said the changes, particularly where they involved encroachments on rights and liberties, should be demonstrated to be "necessary, reasonable and proportionate". But in many instances the new legislation "does not appear to meet these requirements". The Human Rights Law Centre says people generally have the right to ask for an official's name and identification number, and the reason they are being stopped. In Sarah's case, Mark says she was too intimidated to record the name of the police officer who detained her. He wondered if the officer had been influenced by Operation Fortitude, and said the incident "makes me very angry".

"My emigrating and working here should be of mutual benefit – I'm bringing with me a professional skill that you lack in Australia … while I, in return, get to live in such a beautiful country. It seems [officials are] forgetting this," he said. "Australia is feeling like it's becoming ever more closed to the outside world. The powers that be seem to have the attitude that this country is theirs and absolutely no one else is allowed to benefit from it." * Not their real names