BROWNSVILLE, Texas — The steel fence that the U.S. government wants to build along the Mexican border would do more than slice through the University of Texas’ Brownsville campus and cut off the golf course from the rest of the school.

School officials say it would make a mockery of the very mission of the university: closer ties between the U.S. and Mexico.

The university — built close to the Rio Grande on land where the United States and Mexico traded cannon blasts during the Mexican-American War 160 years ago — recruits Mexican students, offers government and business classes in English and Spanish, and turns out sorely needed bilingual teachers. It has a biological station in Mexico and hosts educators at a Binational Conference every spring. About 400 of the 17,000 students are from Mexico, and more than half commute across the river.

The fence, if built as envisioned by the U.S. Border Patrol, would run a mile north of the Rio Grande, the international boundary, cutting off about 180 acres of the 465-acre campus.