 Dear Sharra, Friday morning after the debate, I went to the Homestead detention center in Homestead, Florida. We stood on ladders in order to see over the fence to look at children who are detained there. We visited a group called Witness Homestead, from whom I learned about the 2,700 to 3,000 young people who reside in the facility and the conditions that they experience there. Yet what I saw outside the fence is as important as what I saw when I looked over it: politicians, human rights groups, religious groups, social justice advocates and others, all bearing witness to a tragic situation and refusing to look away. Gandhi's concept of soul force means bearing witness to the agony of others as a form of political expression. When I told President Trump at the debate on Thursday night that we would turn love into a political force, this is what I meant. The commitment and dedication of those I met outside the fence at Homestead – many of whom come every day even in the intense heat, in the hopes the children there will know about it and feel they are not alone – is an example of American conscience now rising up in response to the immigrant detainment policy. People from across all religious and spiritual and social justice communities are ready to take a stand for love, and turn it into a political force. Kudos to Congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell for leading the effort for her district, demonstrating by example her commitment to getting the facility closed. The detention center is a profit-making venture and housing each child costs $775 a day. A common characteristic of advanced species is the fierce behavior of the adult female when she senses a threat to her cubs, and we should all see these children as our cubs. The love that will save the world cannot be only the love for our own children; it is also love for children on the other side of town and the other side of the world. I will continue to use my presidential campaign as a platform from which to mount a message of protest against these policies. We must take a stand for these children. We must love them and we must rescue them. This injustice need not be. With love, Marianne
p.s. Watch in the debates when I talk about child detainment as collective child abuse. 
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