An Indonesian father of an infant with special needs, who was detained by federal agents at his hospital workplace in Minnesota after his student visa was secretly revoked, will remain in custody after an immigration judge ruled on Thursday that his case can proceed. The day before [Aditya Wahyu] Harsono’s bond hearing, DHS disclosed their evidence against him. Besides stating that his visa had been revoked for the misdemeanor graffiti conviction, for which he paid $100 in restitution, they also mentioned an arrest from 2021 during a protest over the murder of George Floyd. That charge was dismissed. Harsono is Muslim and frequently posts on social media in support of humanitarian relief for Gaza. He also runs a small non-profit, which sells art and merchandise, with proceeds going to organizations aiding Gaza. —The Guardian, April 29, 2025. Peyton Harsono (pictured above) and Madison Weidner have organized a GoFundMe to support Harsono’s family in these dark days.
I dream,
every now and then,
of an army newsreel
the colonel
across the street,
shows
two ten-year-olds,
his daughter and me.
We are old enough,
he says,
quoting Burns,
to witness “man’s
inhumanity to man,”
a phrase lost on us,
until he turns down
the basement lights,
and the 16-mm film
begins to unwind.
It opens
on a city street
of old buildings,
older than anything
I know of America.
The sidewalks busy
with baby carriages,
people shopping,
children skipping.
When,
out of a doorway,
two men abruptly
drag a man
into the street.
They punch him,
until he falls
to the ground,
and then begin
to kick him.
We can only stare.
The colonel,
as if reading
our minds,
says
they’re beating him
because he’s Jewish.
And the voiceover
starts to explain.
*
When I awaken,
my mind grinds
incessantly
on the words
endangered species.
Grinds on the video
of a woman in white—
a student protester
of foreign extraction,
here in America—
converged upon
by three men in black,
who arrest her.
A chilling reminder
of the colonel’s
newsreel.
Echoing
across the nation’s
landscape,
across mountain,
prairie and sea.
Endangered species.
My mind trembles
over the syllables,
as I imagine them
enclosing themselves
around the laws
and institutions
that nourish
and drive
our democracy.
Endangered species.
I strangle on the words,
here in Indian Country,
where a holocaust
nearly drove a people
into extinction.
We have a history,
I say to myself.
Can we,
as a nation,
change course?
I can almost
imagine
a raging knock
at the door,
as I write.
“You and
your words—
they’re coming
with us,”
I hear
a voice yell.
And I think
of the eyes
that might read
these thoughts.
And of the lines
and lives
that didn’t survive
during
and between
last century’s
Great Wars.
And I confess—
I fear those eyes.
Dick Altman writes in the thin, magical air of Old West’s high desert plains, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in the American
Journal of Poetry, Santa Fe Literary Review, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press,
Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, and others here and abroad. His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry, published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.
