Rubio's Family Story Further Questioned
MIAMI (CBSMiami.com) – The discrepancies, or embellishments, in Senator Marco Rubio's tale of his family's trip to the United States took another strange turn Tuesday.
Last week, the Washington Post reported that contrary to Rubio's official biography that said his family fled the Castro regime in Cuba in 1959; his family actually left Cuba and were admitted for permanent residence two-and-a-half years before Castro's takeover.
His official biography was changed to say he was "born in Miami in 1971 to Cuban exiles who first arrived in the United States in 1956.
Rubio also called the report "outrageous" and said that his family were exiles because they wanted to return to Cuba, but could not.
But, National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" interview with Rubio in 2009 said that his mother returned to Cuba in 1961 to care for her father who had been injured in an accident.
Rubio said the family wanted to return to Miami, but were blocked by Castro's government for nine months and that influenced their thinking about leaving for good.
In an op-ed in Politico last Friday, Rubio never made mention of the accident and said his family was making preparations to move to Cuba, but "after just a few weeks, it became clear that the change happening in Cuba was not for the better."
The problem for Rubio is that he made his family's "Cuban exile" experience a big part of his story during his rise for politics and for most in the Cuban community of exiles, they can remember in vivid detail the date, time and exact details of their flight from Cuba.
