Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been furiously rebuked after the first Channel migrants arrived at a new accommodation centre in the dead of night.
The Home Office said 27 illegal migrants were taken to ex-military barracks at Crowborough, East Sussex, on Thursday - with the first arriving under police escort at 3.30am.
The centre is due to house more than 500 adult male migrants.
They will not be detained at the base, and will be free to come and go at will.
Labour has been forced to come up with extra migrant sites after Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the previous government's Rwanda asylum deal as one of his first acts in office.
The first Rwanda flight was just days from taking off when the scheme was cancelled just after the July 2024 general election.
Rwandan government officials had insisted they would be able to accept a limitless number of Channel small boat migrants under the programme, which would have seen then claim asylum in the east African nation rather than here.
Residents in Crowborough have strongly opposed turning the site into migrant housing, expressing fears about the safety of women and children in the wake of a series of sex attacks by asylum seekers across the country.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said it was 'another day of shame' for Labour.
'We have seen hundreds of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in asylum accommodation, including many rapes, sexual assaults and even murder,' he said.
'Now the women and children of Crowborough will be exposed to those risks too.
'Illegal immigrants are costing £4billion a year to house and they pose a threat to local communities up and down the country.
'If Labour had allowed the Rwanda scheme to start these illegal immigrants would be in Rwanda, not Crowborough - but Keir Starmer was too weak to carry out the plan.'
The Tory frontbencher added: 'The Government tried to hide what they were doing in Crowborough by smuggling illegal immigrants into the site under cover of darkness.'
Constituency MP Nusrat Ghani accused the Home Office of a 'shameful lack of transparency'.
The Conservative said local authority Wealden District Council, run by the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, was yet to demonstrate whether it was preparing legal action against the Government, and challenged them to 'step up.'
However, council leader James Partridge said: 'We've immediately contacted our legal team to ask them to review the decision, to see if there's any way we can bring a legal challenge to it.'
Opponents of the centre - the first large-scale site opened under Labour - were considering their own legal action against the Home Office.
Chair of the campaign group Crowborough Shield, Kim Bailey, said it was hoping to secure an injunction, and criticised the Home Office for an 'information vacuum' that had created 'a lot of fear' in the town of 23,000 residents.
'Of course parents are going to worry. Every day you are seeing reports of a different crime,' Mrs Bailey said.
'The community opened their arms to Ukrainian families and families from Afghanistan in 2021.
'This community is not unwelcoming, but this is not right: 540 men with nothing to do, on the edge of a town.'
She added: 'The Home Office and the Home Secretary do not give a damn about the impact on this community.'
Resident Karen Creed, 62, said: 'My main concern is the fact that it's all men. It's not families.
'We don't know the background of any of them.
'I want to feel free to walk about in the town in which I live.
'It feels like the Government is playing with my freedom.'
She added: 'We all feel totally hoodwinked.
'They brought people down here in the wee small hours, not expecting anybody to see.'
Phillip and Christine Straker, who live next to the base said they had been left 'shellshocked' by the arrivals, with Mrs Straker adding: 'The Home Office have just lied and not done anything they promised.'
Mr Straker said: 'I'm 70 this year, so in the next decade I would probably want to scale down a bit - but now I don’t think we’d be able to sell the house.'
Labour is planning to open further large sites for migrants as part of its pledge to shut down asylum hotels by 2029.
Latest official figures show the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels increased by 13 per cent to 36,273 at the end of September.
Home Secretary Ms Mahmood said: 'Crowborough is just the start.'
'I will bring forward site after site until every asylum hotel is closed and returned to local communities.'
'I will not rest until order and control to our borders is restored.'
She added: 'Illegal migration has been placing immense pressure on communities.
'That is why we are removing the incentives that draw illegal migrants to Britain, closing asylum hotels that are blighting communities.'
The Home Office issued the first images from inside the former barracks, showing basic levels of accommodation including dormitory rooms.