A Texas judge granted a temporary restraining order this week to the opponents of a crowdfunded project to build part of President Trump’s border wall, siding with a butterfly conservancy that sued over its projected environmental impact.

The legal standoff involves a three-mile stretch along the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County, where a hard-line immigration group that is led by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief White House strategist, wants to build an 18-foot-tall wall on private property.

The project is part of a broader effort by We Build the Wall, which claims it has raised $25 million in private donations, to construct a barrier along the southwestern border with Mexico.

But the National Butterfly Center, a nearby 100-acre nature preserve, sued the group on Tuesday in District Court, accusing it of embarking on the project without the proper permits and upsetting the delicate ecosystem.

The District Court judge, Keno Vasquez, wrote on Tuesday that “imminent and irreparable harm” would occur if the project were allowed to go forward.

“The defendants’ conduct has demonstrated irreparable harm to plaintiff since defendants have committed willfully, maliciously and with an actual and subjective intent to commit great harm to plaintiff,” Judge Vasquez wrote.

Brian Kolfage, who founded the campaign to pay for the border wall, shrugged off the ruling in an interview on Wednesday.

“It looks like it was written by a first-year law student,” said Mr. Kolfage, an Air Force veteran and Purple Heart recipient.

Mr. Kolfage, a triple amputee who served in Iraq and who ran a right-wing website that was eventually removed by Facebook, said opponents of the wall were using civil actions to harass people trying to build the wall on private property.

“It’s just these butterfly people want to try to flex their muscle a bit,” he said. “It’s just a silly attempt.”

Jeffrey Glassberg, the founder and president of the North American Butterfly Association and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, accused the wall’s builders in an interview on Wednesday of flouting the temporary restraining order.

“These people appear to be so lawless that it doesn’t have an effect on them,” he said.

Among the association’s chief concerns is flooding, he said. Dr. Glassberg said that the nature preserve had not been allowed to review detailed plans for the wall and that vegetation had already been cleared from the riverbank.

“It’s already been destructive,” he said. “I think they’re all looking for publicity and money. None of it is political on our part.”

A lawyer listed for the property’s owner, Neuhaus & Sons, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.

The next hearing in the legal standoff is scheduled for Dec. 17, during which the butterfly conservancy is expected to request a temporary injunction for the remainder of the proceedings in its lawsuit.

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