Migrants have been warned to stay away from Brighton and Hove if they do not have a job or a place to stay.
Around a quarter of a million migrants from Bulgaria and Romania could move to the UK over the next five years after EU restrictions are lifted at the end of 2013.
But experts said it was “almost impossible” to know how many migrants might choose to move to Sussex after the rule change.
Andy Winter, chief executive of the housing charity Brighton Housing Trust, said any migrants from Bulgaria and Romania without a home or the guarantee of a job should stay away from the city.
He said: “If they have got no work and no accommodation, the government should be telling them not to come.
“If they do come, we’ll try and relocate them and help them as best we can.
“But the fact is, things are rough here for people with no job or no home.
“The streets are not paved with gold.”
Migrants
Brighton and Hove is already a popular destination for foreign migrants with 15.1 per cent of the population born outside the UK, higher than 11 per cent in the south east and 12.8 per cent nationally.
More than 4,000 migrants arrive in the city from outside of the UK every year, according to the most recent figures.
Councillor Jason Kitcat, leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, said the local authority had “no plans to make special preparations” for any further surge in migration to the area, and there was “no evidence that Brighton and Hove would experience an influx of people from these countries in particular”.
But Hove MP Mike Weatherley said the council should keep the situation “under review as a matter of course”.
Dr James Hampshire, a senior lecturer at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, said there would certainly be a “flow of people” to Brighton and Hove, although it was hard to know exactly how many to expect.
A member of No Borders Brighton, the pro-immigration pressure group, said more foreign migrants would “enrich” Brighton and Hove.
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