The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expected to deploy a team to assess the influx of immigrants from South and Central America that has overwhelmed the city of Denver since December, the White House said Thursday.

Jon Ewing, a Denver Human Services spokesperson, confirmed that city officials will meet with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security team next week.

A White House spokesperson said the deployment will be used to “assess the current migrant situation and identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants.”

White House officials have been in contact with Mayor Mike Johnston and Gov. Jared Polis to coordinate and determine the best practices to support Denver “over the coming months or until Congress takes action to fix our nation’s broken immigration system,” the spokesperson said.

As of Thursday, the city has fed and sheltered nearly 24,000 immigrants – many of whom are refugees fleeing Venezuela.

The majority – an estimated 70% – are stopping in Denver on their way to another U.S. city.

The Biden-Harris Administration has provided more than $11 million in funding to Colorado and Denver to aid in the response.

As of Monday, Denver spent more than $26 million on the response, of which about half has been reimbursed by the state and federal government.

It’s unclear what threshold spending Denver could hit before becoming untenable, but officials have asserted that the city will continue to welcome immigrants.

As the number of border crossing has swelled in El Paso, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bused immigrants out of the Lone Star State to the states of Democratic governors – including Colorado – with “self-declared sanctuary cities.”

Generally, a sanctuary city is one that establishes a policy discouraging local law enforcement from reporting an individual’s immigration status to federal authorities.

Abbott made international headlines last year when he sent immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and to Vice President Kamala Harris’ D.C. residence.

Earlier this month, Texas sent nine busloads of immigrants over a single weekend, prompting panic and a change of tactics among Denver officials who have grappled with multiple waves of new arrivals that has threatened the city’s shelter capacity.

In response, the City and County of Denver modified its length-of-stay policy for immigrant shelters, cutting down the time by a week for some and increasing by the same length for others.

Since May 18, Texas has bused more than 3,200 immigrants to Denver, according to the Abbott administration.

Since employing his busing strategy, Abbott has bused out of Texas more than 50,000 immigrants.

The influx exemplifies the crisis unfolding at the U.S. border for years that has now spilled over into America’s interior to cities like Denver, which is more than 600 miles from El Paso, Texas, the closest U.S. border.

Democratic- and Republican-led governors have exchanged jabs at each other for busing immigrants out of their state and into another.

Earlier this year, the mayors of New York City and Chicago criticized Gov. Polis for sending immigrants in Denver to their cities. At the time the city had provided 1,900 bus tickets for immigrants to travel to more than 100 U.S. cities.

Editor’s note: This is a developing story. Colorado Politics reporter Ernest Luning contributed to this report.