Fears about border crisis have surged to become 2024 election's top issue - MAJORITY of voters now back frontier wall, polls show

Fears about unchecked immigration have surged to become the top issue for voters, and most Americans for the first time want walls built across the southern border, new surveys shows.

Polls released this week show that voters are getting more worried about migrant flows across the US-Mexico frontier, hurting President Joe Biden's chances in November's election.

They come as Biden and former president Donald Trump make dueling trips to the border, seeking to turn the strained immigration system to their advantage in their campaign rematch.

The share of voters who rank immigration as America's top concern has shot up in recent weeks, Gallup polling shows 

Migrants walk near the river after crossing the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas

Pollster Patrick Murray said illegal immigration 'has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year.'

Americans now say immigration is the top issue facing the nation — with 28 percent of voters calling it the main concern, ahead of the state of the government and the economy.

That's an eight percentage point jump from January.

It's also the first time voters were worried more about immigration than anything else since the 2019 — the last time there was a surge in migrants.

A Monmouth University Poll separately found that 53 percent of voters support building a wall across the southern frontier to deter migrants.

Another 46 percent said they opposed building the wall.

That's the first time a majority of voters supported the proposal since the group started asking that question in 2015.

Pollsters found that Americans are taking people flows more seriously and increasingly want to see more wall built along the border  

Migrants who have been sent up to New York City from the southern border continue to arrive

It's an even higher level of support than in September 2017, when Trump was president and building barriers among other anti-immigrant policies.

Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray warns of Biden's migrant 'weakness'

Back then, about a third of voters supported wall-building, while 60 percent were opposed.

Pollsters also found that more than eight in ten Americans saw illegal immigration as a very serious or somewhat serious problem.

That also reflected a sharp rise over the past decade.

Murray, the pollster, said Democratic voters were increasingly joining Republicans in expressing alarm about the border.

He called it 'Biden's weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.'

Against this backdrop, Biden will on Thursday travel to Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings, a spokesperson said.

He will meet border agents and discuss the need for bipartisan legislation.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald says migrants are 'poisoning the blood' of the country

Recent migrants arrivals wait for classes at a day shelter in Chelsea, Massachusetts

Trump, for his part, will head to Eagle Pass, Texas, about 325 miles away from Brownsville, another hotspot in the state-federal clash over border security, according to AP.

The trips underscore immigration's importance in the 2024 White House race, for Republicans and increasingly for Democrats, particularly after congressional talks on a deal to reduce illegal migration unraveled.

Biden bashed Republicans for ditching the bipartisan border deal after Trump came out in opposition to the plan to tighten asylum rules and create daily limits on border crossings.

Trump, meanwhile, has dialed up his anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying migrants are 'poisoning the blood' of Americans.

The number of people who illegally cross the US border has been rising for years and reached new highs under Biden.

The trend is fueled by ever more people fleeing political chaos in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Migrants are driven by climate change, war, and unrest in other nations, the economy, while cartels profit from the people flows.

President Joe Biden will on Thursday travel to Brownsville, Texas, an area that often sees large numbers of border crossings

The Biden administration has increasing legal pathways to encourage migrants to arrive by plane with sponsors, not illegally on foot to the border.

But people flows have far outpaced the capacity of a system that has not been updated in decades.

Arrests for illegal crossings dropped by half in January.

But there were record highs in December, which saw more than 10,000 arrests for illegal crossing per day over several days.

Trump is making immigration the focus of his reelection campaign.

He has seized on images of migrants sleeping in police stations and in hangars as proof that Biden's policies have failed.

He's also made frequent trips to the border as a candidate and president.