In enacting the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which took effect October 28, 2000, the U.S. Congress relied heavily on a State Department report on human trafficking into the United States published in April 2000. The report by Amy O'Neill Richard, an analyst in the State Department, provides the latest and most complete publicly available analysis of human trafficking into the United States. The report defines "human trafficking" as including all acts involved in the recruitment, abduction, transport, harboring, transfer, sale, or receipt of persons within national or across international borders through force, coercion, fraud, or deception for the purpose of placing them in situations of slavery or slavery-like conditions, such as forced labor or services, including prostitution or sexual services, domestic servitude, bonded sweatshop labor, or other debt bondage. The report estimates that 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are being trafficked into the United States each year. Most come from Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. They enter the United States through the illegal use of legitimate travel documents, the use of false travel documents, and illegal transportation across the borders without inspection. Most of the human trafficking into the United States has been done by small crime rings and loosely connected criminal networks, although larger organized crime groups have been heavily involved in human trafficking outside the United States. Investigations, arrests, and prosecutions of traffickers have increased in the United States since 2000, and cases include charges against U.S. companies that cooperate in importing and transporting illegal aliens to work in their enterprises. In response to the September 11 terrorist attack in the United States, the Patriot Act was passed with several provisions that tighten measures designed to counter illegal immigration.