WINNIPEG -- Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says the federal government has failed by not trying to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to change his immigration policies.
Pallister's comments follow the death of a woman near the Manitoba-Minnesota border who American officials say was trying to seek asylum in Canada.
Pallister says more people are fleeing the United States because they fear deportation, and the federal government has not taken any action to convince the U.S. government to change its policies.
He also says the federal government should be talking to immigrant communities in cities such as Minneapolis to dissuade people from trying to cross the border on foot.
Some immigration lawyers have called on Canada to suspend an agreement with the United States that rejects people at official border crossings if they have already claimed asylum in the U.S.
They say the agreement encourages people to sneak across the border, but Pallister says there are arguments for and against the deal.
The Kittson County sheriff's office says the body of Mavis Otuteye, 57, was found Friday in a drainage ditch close to the Canadian border near the Minnesota town of Noyes. A preliminary autopsy suggests she died from hypothermia.
Authorities believe Otuteye was a citizen of Ghana in western Africa.
