The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, has teamed up with other landowners to sue to stop construction of new sections of wall between the two countries.

The facility sits on 110 acres near the southern tip of Texas - an area of low-lying marshes, brush and scrub forests, offering a variety of ecosystems that provide ample habitat for migratory species of all shapes and sizes.

It is also flush along the Rio Grande River, which forms more than 1,260 miles (2027 km) of the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

That puts the small, private environmental preserve in the centre of a raging debate over immigration and national security - and whether and where to build Donald Trump’s oft-promised border wall.

The North American Butterfly Association asked a federal court to halt the government’s border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley, arguing that the construction is interfering with its property rights.

But as contractors moved heavy construction equipment onto the property last month, the centre filed a temporary restraining order.

The equipment was removed, but on February 14, a federal judge in Washington dismissed the lawsuit.

National Butterfly Center director, Marianna Trevino Wright, and her legal team have appealed, while they wait for the government to make its next move.