NEW YORK -- Migrants unable to find beds in the have resorted to sleeping on the streets around the Roosevelt Hotel intake center. On Monday morning, there were dozens of makeshift beds on the sidewalk.

Power Malu, an activist with Artists, Athletes and Activist, said that most of the migrants sleeping on the streets are waiting for a bed in the shelter system. While they’re waiting, many have resorted to sleeping on the streets, on trains or other public spaces.

The Legal Aid Society has threatened legal action over the situation and the apparent violation of the mandated right to shelter.

“There is no dispute that the City has a legal obligation to find an appropriate placement for anyone in need of shelter in a timely fashion,” Legal Aid and the Coalition for the Homeless wrote in a joint statement. “Denying new arrivals placement and forcing people to languish on local streets is cruel and runs afoul of a range of court orders and local laws.”

“[S]hould this continue, we will have no choice but to file litigation to enforce the law,” it said.

As a new Adams administration rule limiting shelter stays to 60 days kicks in and migrants are being given the boot from shelters, the Midtown intake center has become more crowded. Many, Malu said, don’t want to take the risk of leaving to sleep somewhere else for the night and coming back in the morning.

Instead, they’re opting to stay at the Roosevelt, sleeping on the sidewalk in the hopes that they’re going to get the call that says they have a bed waiting for them. Many of the migrants have crossed the southern border seeking asylum.

This has worked for some, but not all, of the migrants, Malu said. Those who visit the Roosevelt looking for shelter placement are often turned away and told to try their luck at the 30th Street homeless intake center.

“When they go to the intake center on 30th Street, they get sent back ... and when they come back they’re at the back of the line,” Malu said, adding that at 30th Street, they’re told they can’t be helped there because of their immigration status.

“The Roosevelt Hotel is telling them they don’t have room for them,” he said. “What happened to the right to shelter?”

Malu said that city claims that the migrants are offered a place to sleep while they’re waiting for shelter placement aren’t true.

“There are no options being offered. Their only option is a respite site, and they’re only offered that when they open a spot of that respite site.”

“If [the city] is giving them the option, what does that option look like?”

“They’re shining a light on how horrible the system is, and they’re getting punished for it,” Malu said of the migrants.

Of those sleeping on the streets, not all of them are looking for shelter placements, but other services like reticketing that the center also provides. Activists doing outreach on the ground there have been able to help and advocate for these people, Malu said.

“Now you got people who are sleeping on the streets for like one, two days and they’re not looking for shelter, they’re looking for those services.”