As the city continues to grapple with the influx of asylum seekers, City Hall is hoping new investments in legal services will relieve some pressure.

“We have helped to file more than 16,000 asylum, work authorization and TPS applications,” said Mayor Eric Adams at this weekly Tuesday question-and-answer briefing with reporters.  

However, of the thousands of applications filed, about 2,200 have received work authorization while another 650 applications already had the right to work.

The Adams administration has been focusing more on legal services as costs for the migrant crisis have ballooned to about $2 billion.

Officials said they hope that getting migrants to work will get them out of care.

“We’re running out of staff, running out of money, we’re running out of space. I just keep saying the same thing over and over again,” said Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom.

The mayor later added that the financial costs to open new emergency shelters are financially “unsustainable.”

“Any time we say we’re not going to have a line for someone, that means a new place, new staffing, a new infrastructure, that’s more money. We’re not looking to spend more money, we’re looking to bring down the cost of this,” said the mayor.

As the city looks to cut costs, City Comptroller Brad Lander was in Washington, D.C. Tuesday.

Lander was in the Capitol on a trip to focus on labor rights, but was also using the opportunity to meet with federal officials about the migrant situation.

The mayor half-heartedly applauded the trip.

“I’m happy he’s going. It took a little while, and it’s probably $2.7 billion less than what we should be asking for. But I’m glad he’s going; all citywide elected officials should go because this is the number one issue facing the city right now,” said Adams.

The federal government has provided around $160 million in funding for the crisis, a drop in the bucket compared to the billions being spent.

Another strategy the city has been employing to cut costs is giving migrants shelter limits of 30 and 60 days.

Migrants who hit their deadline have to reapply for a new shelter spot or can ask for a ticket outside of the city, a process known as re-ticketing.  

Dozens of migrants who have hit their shelter limit have formed a line in the Lower East Side.  

“I can’t tell you what the average wait time is because if there is something available, we will give it to them, but that is not the point. We’re not trying to be on a merry-go-round,” said Williams-Isom.  

On Tuesday, the city said it will expand legal services, with help from the state, to two additional satellite sites on top of sites in Harlem and lower Manhattan.

Meanwhile, more than 65,000 migrants are in the city’s care, according to officials.

Adams said on Tuesday that an average 2,000 to 3,000 are coming a week.