AUSTIN, Texas — Fifteen Republican-led states have asked a federal judge to bar the Biden administration from ending the Title 42 policy at the border next month, warning that doing so would lead to more illegal immigration and “directly harm” U.S. communities.

The coalition of states, including southern border states Arizona and Texas, on Monday evening asked the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia to keep the pandemic-era policy in place for fear that reversing it would lead to an unprecedented surge of immigrants to the border, something that even the Biden administration has admitted will happen.