Prejudicial Illegal Immigration Laws

This article gives an impassioned description of anti-illegal immigration laws which have been recently passed in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. While reading this article, I was appalled by the hypocrisy present in these new laws, which allow police to arrest "suspected illegal immigrants" without warrants, and make it mandatory for public schools to report a student's immigration status to the state. The fact that so many are simply disregarding the most basic liberties allotted to those living within this country due to what often comes down to simply prejudice is disgusting, to say the least. Also, it seems clear that these laws only serve to make America look more like a prejudicial police state, rather than actually solve the problem of illegal-immigration.
However, while I agreed with the author's stance, I think that they could have tweaked a few things about the article. While describing the negative affects of a law which would "require businesses to check employees against an error-plagued federal E-Verify database, and to fire those who are flagged as unauthorized" the author mentions that once the law takes hold "there will be no one left to pick onions, peaches and cotton". I'm pretty sure that, despite the stereotypes, not all illegal immigrants work harvesting agricultural products. Could the author be letting their own prejudices shine through? Despite what their actual opinion regarding illegal immigration may be, I think that such a statement certainly makes the author (and their stance) seem less sympathetic.
Also, though they have plenty of information regarding the different components of each law, the author doesn't include any specific personal account in the article (i.e. "Mr. B was affected negatively by this law because of X"). Instead, the author relies on hypothetical situations. I'm not saying that personal accounts are a necessary part of the story, I just think that, in this case, they would have helped to humanize the issue of illegal immigration for the audience. I'm not a writer; these are just some things which bothered me a little bit about the article.


Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/04/opinion/04mon1.html?_r=2&hp