That number included two days in a row of "just over" 7,000 encounters will illegals by CBP officials, plus more than 1,000 "gotaways" — individuals who get across the border but manage to evade law enforcement — on Saturday alone, according to a post to X by Fox News' Bill Melugin.

Melugin explained that those numbers were likely to increase if they followed the pattern of previous years since Biden, 81, took office.

"Every year under Biden, numbers drop in Jan/Feb, start moving back up in March, then explode in the spring.

"If no action is taken – buckle up for the rest of the year, if the last 3 years are any indication," the Fox News Channel national correspondent added. "Especially if migrants feel they need to get in before Biden is potentially voted out of office."

Biden and former President Donald Trump, 77, who is likely to face Biden again in November's general election, both visited the southern border Thursday, Trump at Eagle Pass, the "epicenter" of the border crisis, and Biden at the more sedate Brownsville, Texas, where far fewer illegal crossings have been seen.

A Gallup poll released two days before those visits showed that immigration was the "country's single-most important problem" in Americans' minds, according to Axios.

The issue had not topped that poll since 2019, the outlet noted — not long before the last presidential election.

A Harvard CAPS-Harris poll conducted at approximately the same time noted that more American voters considered "the situation at the U.S. southern border" to be the Biden administration's biggest failure, according to The Hill.