Rubio Denies Embellishing Family History
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – United States Senator Marco Rubio is dismissing claims that he in any way embellished his family's history when he claimed repeatedly that his parents were Cuban exiles.
"To suggest my family's story is embellished for political gain is outrageous," Rubio said in a statement. "The dates I have given regarding my family's history have always been based on my parents' recollections of events that occurred over 55 years ago and which were relayed to me by them more than two decades after they happened."
According to Rubio's Senate website, he claimed his parents came to America following Fidel Castro's Communist takeover in 1959.
But, the Washington Post discovered that Rubio's parents had come to the U.S. in 1956. His father served as a bartender and came for economic reasons. Castro wasn't in Cuba when the Rubio's left the island nation.
"In 1961, my mother and older siblings did in fact return to Cuba while my father stayed behind wrapping up the family's matters in the U.S.," Rubio wrote. "After just a few weeks living there, she fully realized the true nature of the direction Castro was taking Cuba and returned to the United States one month later, never to return."
Rubio said that as a result his parents were exiled from the home country they tried to return to because "they did not want to live under communism."
