The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday said COVID-era restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border set to end this week should temporarily stay in place as a Republican legal challenge moves forward, just as the White House had been prepping for an increase in the number of migrant crossings.

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed to keep the restrictions known as Title 42 after a group of states with Republican attorneys general said lifting the measure would saddle them with additional costs if more migrants entered.

A U.S. judge ruled last month that Title 42, which blocks many migrants from seeking asylum, is unlawful and set the order to end on Wednesday. But the states sought to overturn that decision by intervening in a case originally brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of migrants denied entry under the order.

The Supreme Court gave the parties in the legal dispute until Tuesday at 5 p.m. ET to respond. The temporary order from the nation's highest court means Title 42 will stay in place until further notice from the court.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden had been preparing for Title 42 to end this week and Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a press conference Monday that the White House was seeking more than $3 billion from Congress to pay for additional personnel, technology, migrant holding facilities and transportation at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The push for additional resources came as U.S. authorities had been preparing for the possibility of 9,000-14,000 people per day trying to cross into the United States if Title 42 was lifted, around double the current rate.

Title 42, aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, was issued in March 2020 under Republican former President Donald Trump, an immigration restrictionist. Biden, a Democrat, kept it in place for more than a year.

(Cover: Migrants who said they were 16 and 14 years old walk along a fence after climbing way through a canal fence and after crossing under a hole in the U.S.-Mexico border wall in El Paso, Texas, December 19, 2022. /CFP)