Colombian Woman Being Deported

Another difficult day at the station. I did a follow-up story on the Colombian woman facing deportation. The judge made his decision today - the mother of two has to pack her bags and leave on Thursday. It was heartbreaking; the cameraman and I were with her as she got the news.

She says her cousin and uncle both were killed by a paramilitary group and her life could be taken next if she heads back. Her 10-year old daughter's terrified of going there, in the anxiety of it all she's bitten off much of her nails. 

An insider at the courthouse told me the number of deportations from Canada has increased during the past few years. There are a lot of injustices going on but people aren't getting the chance to tell their stories because they're being deported even before getting the chance to speak. The Immigration Board's become more rigid and doesn't give individual cases enough thought. One man speculated that staff-members are afraid of being more fair out of sheer fear of losing their jobs.

Anyway, I had to rush with my script once we got back to the station. The pack required quite a bit of tweaking by the producer. A colleague suggested I try to speak more 'naturally' during my voice-overs, and should sound less like I'm reading off a script. I was also asked to remember to write along to my pictures, since we ran out of  visuals at certain points during editing. So much to think about at once! Which is hard to do when you're also counting down the minutes.

The good news is I found a gorgeous dress to wear to a wedding reception I'm heading to tomorrow. I'm missing the actual wedding though, because I'm getting another day of R E P O R T I N G!