Crews set up a temporary fence before the sun rose over Denver on Wednesday, when officials helped roughly 300 homeless immigrants break down their tents at the city’s largest immigrant encampment.

The encampment off Speer Boulevard and Zuni Street sprung up about three months ago when the immigrants — who had crossed the border illegally, arrived in Denver and previously stayed at city shelters — exhausted their vouchers and moved onto the street.

“I don’t consider it a sweep,” insisted Jon Ewing, a Denver Human Services spokesperson. “I consider the definition of a sweep is that you basically sweep the problem down the road.”

Ewing added, “That’s not what this is.”

Denver Human Services has been managing the response since the city lifted its emergency declarations.

Local officials — in Denver and elsewhere in the country — have long complained of the crisis’ fiscal toll.

If the immigrant surge remains unrelenting, the costs to Denver could grow upwards of $180 million, Denver Mayor Johnston said Wednesday.

“That’s unsustainable,” Johnston said.

As immigrants packed their possessions into large, yellow plastic bags, Johnston walked through the encampment on Wednesday morning, asking about their needs and telling them about the city’s next steps.

“It is much harder for us to provide services and keep people safe in an outdoor setting,” Johnston said.

All of the immigrants, Johnston said, will be moved into either a leased housing unit or a shelter.

The Zuni Street encampment has roughly 150 tents and about 300 immigrants, many from Venezuela.

“The plan is to have a place for everyone in the encampment,” said Jose Salas, a Johnston spokesperson.

Johnston and Denver City Council President Pro-Tem Amanda Sandoval called on Congress, again, to create a comprehensive immigration plan, provide additional funding and work permits.

The plan for the sweep was hatched to clean up the encampment and relocate its residents after the Denver City Council scrimped together an extra $330,000 to respond to the crisis.

For the past week, city officials have been holding workshops with immigrants at the Zuni encampment to place them, if they’re working, in an apartment, or, if they’re still looking for work, in a shelter for up to 30 days, Ewing said.

Spanish flyers said city officials would remove and hold any property for 30 days.

Ewing said the city has enough shelter space for about 300 people in two shelters, but can expand to a third, if necessary.

About 100 immigrants, Ewing said, have already signed leases.

“The quicker we can get them out of the cold the better,” Ewing said.

Ewing added, “I’m hopeful that we’ll have enough (space).”

Roughly 4,500 immigrants were being sheltered in Denver as of Wednesday afternoon.

Wednesday’s sweep comes as Johnston announced reaching his goal of placing 1,000 homeless people indoors by the end of the year. Johnston accomplished this by spending $45 million to acquire or lease units at hotels and purchase “tiny” shelters for “micro-communities” that his administration is building across the city.

He plans to do it again this year, with $50 million earmarked for the project.

The immigrant crisis offers a more obstinate challenge to Johnston because most — if not all — of these immigrants cannot legally work in the U.S. For those with a path to work legally, obtaining work authorization can still take months.

“We know that people are going to work whether they are authorized to or not,” Ewing said. “We really need to expand work authorization.”

This has huge implications for the city.

Johnston has maintained that the issues immigrants face are uniquely different than those of homeless people. This is because addressing the immigrant crisis will not be as simple as providing services to ease them into work and self-sufficiency. If the newly arriving immigrants are unable to obtain work, they won’t be able to house and feed themselves without public assistance.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Denver had welcomed 36,059 immigrants from South and Central America, particularly Venezuela.

Last month, Denver marked its one-year anniversary since 90 immigrants were dropped off downtown at Union Station, left to wander in the cold looking for shelter. Officials have scrambled ever since to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis.

The response to the unfolding calamity at the U.S. border with Mexico and in Colorado’s most populous city has cost a staggering $36 million. Despite federal and state grants, the brunt of these costs have fallen to Denver taxpayers.

A small fire broke out at the camp, igniting a tent and Tip Cordova’s worst fears.

Cordova owns a Shell gas station adjacent to the encampment.

“I was scared, it was right behind us,” Cordova said of the fire.

In the three months since the encampment sprouted, Cordova said business has been down about 50% at the pumps where immigrants often congregate. Having grown frustrated with the loitering and the city’s slow response, Cordova said she was pleased to see the city relocating homeless immigrants.

“I feel bad for them,” Cordova said, adding she doesn’t want other businesses to suffer.

PJ Damico, a homeless advocate at the encampment Wednesday, was critical of Denver’s relocation strategy.

“The city hasn’t thought this out,” Damico said.

Early in the humanitarian crisis, officials determined the city would pay to temporarily house the arriving immigrants as well as provide transportation to the city of their choice, for those not wanting to stay in Denver.

Once predominantly confined to states that border Mexico or gateway cities such as New York and Chicago, the crisis has now spilled over into interior cities like Denver, which is more than 600 miles from the closest U.S. border.