Constitutional Law, Politics

Rubio’s Not So Compelling Family History

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

It’s time once again for a history lesson, coming to you courtesy of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida). The questions are: when did Fidel Castro come to power and when did Rubio’s parents come to America? According to Rubio’s official bio, his parents “came to America following Fidel Castro’s takeover” of Cuba. Rubio used that compelling story to shape his political persona. Rubio would tell audiences that he was the “son of exiles” who fled their beloved homeland after “a thug” took power.

Documents, including naturalization papers and other official records, show that Rubio’s parents arrived in the United States on May 27, 1956, more than two-and-a-half years before Castro came to power in early January, 1959.

What does a politician do when his carefully crafted political persona is in jeopardy? He throws his parents under the bus by claiming that he’s “going off the oral history of my family.” It was his family members that misled him. However true, it’s not a classy way to treat your parents.

It now appears that Rubio’s parents choose to immigrate to the United States for a better life, not because they were fleeing persecution or tyranny. Boring!

Here’s the ironic part: Rubio was born in 1971, but his parents didn’t become citizens until 1975. According to birthers, Rubio is not a natural born citizen and not qualified to be President or Vice President. It has been argued that:

A natural born Citizen of the United States is one born in the United States to two U.S. Citizens who were Citizens of the United States either by birth or naturalization at the time of the birth of the child.

According to birther logic, Rubio was born with dual allegiances. Has the responsible gene for that affliction been found?

H/T: Kevin Drum, Stephanie Mencimer, Steve Benen, Steve Benen, WaPo.

23 thoughts on “Rubio’s Not So Compelling Family History”

  3. I have always been under the impression, I think from my high school Civics class that any person born on US terretory was a natural citizen of the US or if their parents are not citizens that they would have to choose either citizenship in their parents nation of origin or US citizenship. Has this changed or did my teacher lie to me?

    Of course the statement that his family ran from a despot desn’t ring true. If they ran from Fidel, then they were probably wealthy and associated with the US and Mafia business interests who were raping Cuba with the help of Batista and the Cuban Elite. I think it’s time we admitted that the Despots in the Cuban senario were not Fidel and his regime but those he drove out. Out to the waiting arms of their wealthy enablers, The United States.

    Out to where they could hatch their right-wing takeover plots with the help of the CIA and other government agencies to punish Castro for not buckling under to the will of the all powerful US Government.
    I’m sorry but if Rubio or anyone else claims to have run from Fidel; it just tells me thay they are the despots and Elitist overlords of the poor people of Cuba.

    I don’t claim that Fidel has no faults. I don’t say everything he did was right. But I do say that Fidel had good motive and if you get the chance to speak with anyone who stayed to rebuild Cuba, most will tell you that the people love Fidel and Raoul. Even though Cuba has still had issues, they were far happier to place their trust in Fidel than in the money hungry Cuban Aristocrats and American Corporate and Organized crime interests who were running Cuba before Fidel took over.

  5. if marco was born in 71 and his parents didn’t become citizens until 75 would that make marco an “anchor baby”?

  6. The “natural” citizen is archaic from a time of royal families marrying each other to promote peace but it is the law. Do we need an amendment to modernize it or a supreme court decision?

  7. Trivia question: What do Anwar al-Awlaki, Yaser Esam Hamdi, and newborn twin daughters of Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman have in common?

    Popular opinion, however, would contend that all four of the “presumed” citizens in my original question–Awlaki, Hamdi, and Guzman’s twin daughters, because of their made-in-the-USA birth certificates, are “natural born citizens.” If their births were also announced in the local newspaper, presumably they could all run for President of the United States.

    The Citizenship Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was added during Senate debate [wherein] the authors discussed in great detail their purpose and intentions in adding the requirement that a person be born, not just in the United States, but “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Sen. Howard, sponsor and author of the Citizenship Clause, when questioned about the meaning of “jurisdiction,” responded that the phrase was intended to be read as meaning “not owing allegiance to anybody else.” Sen. Trumbull, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, described persons who “are not subject to our jurisdiction in the sense of owing allegiance solely to the United States.” Chairman Trumbull noted that even “partial allegiance if you please, to some other government” is sufficient to disqualify a person under the jurisdiction requirement.

    The Court appeared to follow just such a two-step analysis in the famous 1875 women’s suffrage case of Minor v Happersett. Justice Waite, writing the majority opinion, first addressed the claim of Virginia Minor’s citizenship, and then proceeded to discuss whether such citizenship entitled her to the right to vote. In answer to the first issue, (and thus making this part of the opinion a direct holding and not dicta),

    Justice Waite wrote: “At common-law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives, or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners.”

    http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/10/citizenship_jeopardy.html

    Seen by some as a calculated move to re-ignite his failing campaign, last month Obama ordered the fatal drone attack on al-Awlaki. Just last December, Yale Professor Peter Schuck, in his article, “Citizen Terrorist,” presciently wrote: “In the case of a known terrorist like al-Awlaki, his citizenship status may (depending on how the courts rule on the issue) affect whether the government can kill him without legal process.” The Obama administration obviously did not wait for a ruling.

    http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/58011

  9. Marco can not be president.

    Bobby Jindal can not be president

    Bet you all wish Obama wasn’t

    🙂

  10. There is no doubt whatsoever that this was the specific intent of those responsible for this illegal editing of American history and law.

    Someone was incredibly busy in June 2008 working on an illegal front invisible to the public; searching and altering Supreme Court Cases published at Justia.com which cite the only case in American history – Minor v. Happersett (1875) – to directly construe Article 2 Section 1’s natural-born citizen clause in determining a citizenship issue as part of its holding and precedent. In this unanimous decision, the Supreme Court defined a “native or natural-born citizen” as a person born in the US to parents who were citizens; a definition which excludes from eligibility both Barack Obama and John McCain.

    So far, 25 corrupted SCOTUS have been identified, and this number may continue to rise as the scope of the tampering becomes apparent. These cases all relied upon Minor, some specifically referencing its definition of Natural Born Citizen – a definition which makes Obama ineligible to be President as that definition is part of the holding and continuing precedent, issued from the highest court in our nation making it the law of the land, even now.

    The most extreme sabotage so far discovered appears to have been done to the landmark decision United States v. Wong Kim Ark which was sabotaged to remove “Minor v. Happersett” three times, along with one reference to “Scott v Sandford”, another to the Slaughterhouse Cases

    Continue reading on Examiner.com JustiaGate – Portland Civil Rights | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/civil-rights-in-portland/justiagate#ixzz1bcLIv6zp

  15. Marco Rubio Defended By Mitt Romney In Wake Of Controversy
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/marco-rubio-mitt-romney_n_1026688.html

    Excerpt:
    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is coming to the defense of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who’s fighting allegations that he embellished his family’s history by saying his parents fled Cuba before Fidel Castro’s communist revolution.

    Romney said on Saturday that Rubio — a rising GOP star who’s often discussed as a potential vice presidential pick — and his family deserve the highest praise and recognition. Romney regarded the recent news reports as an attempt to smear the Florida senator.

    National Journal reports that the former Massachusetts governor said, “I think the world of Marco Rubio, support him entirely and think that the effort to try to smear him was unfortunate and bogus.”

  16. Thanks, Nal. I love this first paragraph from that post you linked to:

    “​Ever since Barack Obama produced his really-real-for-realsies birth certificate–punctuated by that actually quite funny turn at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner–the birther movement has lacked focus. Laguna Niguel dentist/attorney/weekly purchaser of entire Costco pallets of mascara Orly Taitz, along with her many birther frenemies, have been looking around for a new, nationally prominent figure of dubious provenance.”

    🙂

  18. Nal,

    “Here’s the ironic part: Rubio was born in 1971, but his parents didn’t become citizens until 1975. According to birthers, Rubio is not a natural born citizen and not qualified to be President or Vice President.”

    I love irony! Someone give Orly Taitz a call.

  20. Ut oh…….lol…..Damn when things come back and bite you in the ass…

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