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The Mann Act, which criminalizes sex work and trafficking on the federal level for the first time, is passed.

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This act makes it a felony to "traffic" women across geographical borders for sex work. It is intended to intervene against sex with "immoral purposes," which is implicitly coded to include sex outside of marriage or within interracial relationships. This language will be used to further criminalize consensual sexual activity under the code of morality.

This act is based on the premise that immigrant men are "luring" white American women into having sex non-consensually, and refers to sex work as "white slavery." It is motivated in part by pre-World War I fears about the spread of "venereal diseases," which will also provoke the passage of a Navy decree making sex work illegal near military bases.

In preparation for the passage of this act and its enforcement, the newly-formed Bureau of Investigation, which will eventually become the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), is tasked with interviewing sex workers to find out whether they were trafficked.