Nine people were detained and one was missing after trying to walk across the Canada-United States border in the early hours of Tuesday morning, a Minnesota sheriff says.

'We expected because we closed the borders together — for very valid reasons — that when we went to reopen the borders, we would do it together,' Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley said.

Sarnia police say two children have been identified and given assistance from local police, children’s aid, and victim services thanks to information forwarded to the service from police in Kansas.