The Florida Immigrant Coalition has commissioned a pair of billboards calling on Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to take state officials to court to shut down the immigration detention camp in the Everglades, a facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz."
One billboard is located off I-95 and NW 135th Street; the other off the Dolphin Expressway. The billboards feature a photo of Levine Cava and urges people to call her to "stop the Everglades Detention Camp."
READ MORE: Miami's first Cuban-born Mayor speaks out against 'Alligator Alcatraz'
Coalition officials, in a statement on Tuesday, said the new detention site "should be forcefully opposed by county officials," saying its creation is "a deliberately cruel scheme designed to inflict suffering on those held there."
The billboard campaign comes just days after the facility received its first group of suspected undocumented immigrants. Built in a little over a week on land owned and managed by Miami-Dade County, 'Alligator Alcatraz' is now fully operational and expected to house up to 3,000 detainees.
Florida officials say the compound, costing an estimated $450 million a year, includes tents, trailers, surveillance infrastructure, and is guarded by 400 personnel. It is located about 50 miles west of Miami.
Environmental groups and Native American tribes have protested against the center, contending it is a threat to the fragile Everglades system, would be cruel to detainees because of heat and mosquitoes, and is on land the tribes consider sacred.
In an op-ed published Tuesday in the Miami Herald, Levine Cava voiced a "deep concern" over the project and broader federal immigration policies that "prioritize fear and enforcement over compassion and justice."
"Our immigration policies should focus on securing our borders and deporting dangerous criminals," she wrote, "not removing protections for people who are following the law and helping build our economy."
She also cited "overcrowded detention centers with deplorable conditions, inadequate access to legal counsel and an alarming rise in family separations," adding that such practices "violate basic human rights and international norms."
Levine Cava acknowledged the environmental sensitivity of the Everglades and said she is "particularly troubled by multiple deaths that have occurred in federal facilities in our community," including the death of a 75-year-old Cuban man who died after reporting chest pains at the Krome Detention Center.
Though the state commandeered the Everglades site through the governor's executive powers, Levine Cava wrote that she has asked the state to grant Miami-Dade County monitoring access to the facility, signaling a push for oversight even as the county remains without legal control.
As of now, Miami-Dade has not initiated any legal challenge in connection with the facility.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Everglades have sued state and federal authorities and asked a judge to halt the construction of Alligator Alcatraz. They say the rapid construction of the detention center flies in the face of decades-old environmental law.
Named in the lawsuit: the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Florida Division of Emergency Management.
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