Born in Cuba months before the Castro Revolution, De La Torre and his family migrated to the United States as refugees when he was an infant. For a while the U.S. government considered him and his family as "illegal aliens". On 6 June 1960, De La Torre received an order from Immigration and Naturalization Service to "self-deport." He attended Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic elementary school in Queens, New York, and was baptized and confirmed by the Catholic Church. Simultaneously, his parents were &lt;a href="Santer%C3%ADa"&gt;priest/priestess&lt;/a&gt; of the religion Santería. He refers to himself as a "Southern Baptist, Roman Catholic child of Ellegúa." He left Queens, moving to Miami, Florida in his teens.