Author Eric Schlosser Cites Professor Fish in The Atlantic

Noted journalist Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) relied on Professor Eric Fish’s scholarship in his July 21 article in The Atlantic on the “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in Florida and other ICE detention facilities in the works as part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans.

Schlosser references Fish’s 2022 Iowa Law Review article “Race, History, and Immigration Crimes” in explaining that unauthorized entry into the United States was not a criminal offence until 1929, and that the Undesirable Aliens Act was principally sponsored by advocates of eugenics, a racist pseudoscience.

Professor Fish’s primary research is in criminal law, with particular focus on the ethical duties of participants in the criminal process, the structure of immigration crimes, and the system’s emphasis on administrative efficiency. Fish has served as a public defender, first with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, and later as a Federal Defender in San Diego.