MIAMI -- Two lawsuits are being filed to shut down a shantytown of sex offenders under and around the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

About 70 paroled sex offenders live under the bridge and along the causeway. They said they have nowhere else to live in Miami-Dade County because of local laws requiring them to live more than 2,500 feet away from places where children congregate. The state of Florida requires them to live only 1,000 feet away from children.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit over the shantytown, and the Miami City Commission plans to do the same. The settlement is smelly and squalid, with trash piled up and no plumbing or sanitation.

"It is just horrible out there. They are defecating, they are urinating. You have an environmental hazard out there. You have mosquitoes. It's just abject squalor," said Miami Commissioner Marc Sarnoff.

The Miami City Commission gave the go-ahead to sue the Florida Department of Transportation, which owns the land on the causeway, and the Florida Department of Corrections, which places the sex offenders there.

"They ending up just getting out and they're homeless, and there's no place for them to go," said correctional probation administrator Maria DiBernardo. "They register with Miami-Dade police. They have no place to go. They have to come up with something. There's this bridge over there, and they go there because they don't know where else to go."

In suing the state, the city of Miami alleges the defendants have allowed and condoned the creation and maintenance of a public nuisance.

The ACLU filed its own lawsuit Thursday on behalf of convicted sex offenders Bryan Exile, 22, and Elliott Bloom, 31, both of whom live under the bridge.

The ACLU said the men cannot get the treatment they need or monitoring required by parole officers in a squatters' settlement.

"It's not a simple matter but it's an issue we're going to have to address because it isn't fair to the residents around the Julia Tuttle Causeway that are living there and having to put up with that, and also the conditions that they're in is no condition for anyone to live in," said Miami Commission Chairman Joe Sanchez.