EXCLUSIVE: Complete the border wall? Americans say: ‘Yes’ – Fully 87 percent of Republican voters and even a third of Democrats want to finish Donald Trump’s signature barrier, as immigration drives 2024 race

Most Americans support the completion of a wall along the US-Mexico border, according to a DailyMail.com/TIPP poll showing widespread support for a trademark Donald Trump policy that was once written off as extreme.

A whopping 52 percent of our survey respondents said they want the former president’s southern border wall gone, while 38 percent rejected the idea. Another 10 percent are not sure.

The wall has always been controversial — not least when Trump first floated the idea during his 2016 presidential campaign.

But Americans have become excited about the idea after years of record flows of undocumented migrants into the US, strained border services and cities like New York and Chicago.

Once seen as extreme, the border wall is now a mainstream policy for American voters

In this upcoming White House race, Republicans seeking their party’s nomination who once shunned the border wall have now embraced it.

Among them are former skeptics, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie.

Completing the wall is central to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “no excuses” plan to control illegal immigration.

For Vivek Ramaswamy, the third-ranked Republican, the wall is “not enough,” he told Fox News.

As president, he would reinforce the barricades with US military personnel fighting cartels, drug smugglers and human traffickers.

Meanwhile, Trump, the party’s frontrunner by far, says he’s always had the border security strategy right.

At a campaign rally last month in Erie, Pennsylvania, he trumpeted about the “nearly 500 mile border wall” erected during his administration.

Trump’s numbers are disputed – PolitiFact says he added only 52 miles of new wall and only improved or strengthened 458 miles of barrier.

But our survey of nearly 1,400 American adults shows why most Republican candidates have wall-building in their manifestos — it’s almost universally popular among the GOP base.

Republican presidential nominee Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says building walls is part of his tough ‘no excuses’ immigration policy

Even a third of Democrats want to see a barrier from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley at the border. She once rejected the wall, but now says the US ‘must finish what we started’

Texas Governor Greg Abbott unveiled his own floating addition to border security this summer

A full 87 percent approve of more construction along the nearly 2,000-mile long U.S.-Mexico border.

Even a third of Democratic voters want the barricade lifted — a sign that fears of uncontrolled immigration cross partisan lines and will likely play a key role in the 2024 election.

Illegal crossings along the U.S. southern border are up more than 30 percent in July, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data obtained by The Washington Post earlier this month.

Last month’s more than 130,000 border arrests marked an increase from 99,545 in June — a blow to President Joe Biden’s new immigration strategy that was put in place as pandemic-era enforcement rules came to an end.

The office of New York Mayor Eric Adams warned this week that the number of people coming to the city is still rising.

The Democratic mayor says more than 100,000 people have arrived in the city, raising a bill of more than $12 billion for providing food, shelter and other services.