Three migrants drowned in the Rio Grande by Eagle Pass, Texas, officials said Saturday, setting off a dispute among state and federal officials in what seemed to escalate the feud between the Biden administration and Gov. Greg Abbott over the stringent security measures the state has imposed to keep migrants from entering the country.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol agents received a distress call from Mexican authorities about a woman and two children who were trying to cross into the United States near the entrance of Shelby Park, which Mr. Abbott recently closed to curb migration.

Homeland Security said that when Border Patrol agents tried to respond to the call, they were “physically barred” by Texas Military Department agents from accessing the area. But the military department said when Border Patrol agents requested access, the migrants had already drowned, adding that claims that it had prevented the agents from saving them were “wholly inaccurate.”

For more than two years, Mr. Abbott has been testing the legal limits of what a state can do to enforce immigration law, expanding the use of concertina wire along the riverbank and installing buoy barriers to discourage migrants from crossing. But Border Patrol officials in the area have complained that those moves have made it harder for agents to help migrants in distress. And a Homeland Security spokesperson said Texas officials must stop interfering with federal law enforcement.