Well ahead of November’s general elections, a vigorous campaign has been launched for the hearts and minds of voters in Southwest Broward — not by any particular political candidate, but by forces on either side of the debate over a planned federal immigration detention center.

Faced with months of withering opposition from area homeowners and outside immigration-reform advocates, Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison contractor bidding to build the facility, has begun promoting the project through a website, automatic telephone calls and glossy mailers delivered to every registered voter in the two communities that would be most affected: Southwest Ranches, where the detention center would be located, and Pembroke Pines, which would absorb much of the traffic and provide many of the facility’s utilities and services.

Officials with CCA, which is identified as the sponsor throughout the promotional campaign, say they just want to get the facts out on the project, which is expected to be one of the largest immigrant detention centers in the country, with 1,500 or more beds.

The project would create jobs and save taxes, said Steve Owen, a CCA spokesman, adding that it would no more threaten public safety or depress home values than the state women’s prison already in the neighborhood.

“We feel like there has been a lot of misinformation that has been circulated by opponents,” he said.

Owen said CCA has a track record of creating good jobs, treating its employees well and investing in the communities where facilities are located.

“People come away with a different opinion once they come to know CCA,” he said.

But those opposed to the project, including Pembroke Pines city commissioners, who have formally expressed their opposition to the facility, have challenged CCA’s claims of community benefits, and say the company is trying to scare up support by raising the specter of higher taxes and lost jobs.

“CCA can say anything it wants, and send out all the glossy fliers they want,” said Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis. “Our residents don’t want that facility so close to where they live, and so close to where they have schools, and our commission is dead set against the detention center.”

Opponents of the detention center have been tending a grassroots campaign of their own, with yard and picket signs, weekend rallies and a website. They have received support from the Pembroke Pines City Commission, which recently approved a resolution that asked President Barack Obama to intervene and place the facility elsewhere.

Bill Di Scipio, a resident of Southwest Ranches and an opponent of the detention center, said he belongs to a group that plans to form a political action committee soon and make the facility an election issue for all political candidates representing Southwest Broward.

Opponents mobilize

Di Scipio, one of several people behind the opposition website, noprisonswr.org, said the group has distributed more than 500 lawn signs in Southwest Ranches, and received letters and words of support from hundreds of residents.

He has received the CCA mailers at home and dismisses its claims of job creation and tax savings as propaganda.

“Most of their claims are just specious,” he said.

Of the claim that “hundreds of jobs” and “millions of dollars” in tax revenues would be lost if the community rejected the detention center, which is included in one of CCA’s glossy mailers, Di Scipio disagrees. The mailers, and other information about the proposed facility, are available on the CCA website detentioncenterfacts.com.