Cuban Music Star Defects to U.S. With Entourage
By SIMON ROMERO

HOUSTON, June 10 — One of Cuba's leading pop stars, Carlos Manuel, defected after crossing a bridge spanning the Mexican-United States border over the weekend and was released today by immigration authorities in South Texas.

Mr. Manuel, 30, decided to defect last week after performing in Mexico City with his band, Carlos Manuel and His Clan. He walked over the bridge connecting the Mexican border city of Matamoros with Brownsville, Tex. Five members of his entourage — his mother, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, his cousin, who is a percussionist in his band, and a sound engineer — also defected.

Two years ago, another prominent Cuban musician, the salsa singer Manolín, defected and now lives in Miami. Generally, however, popular Cuban musicians lead relatively privileged lives and have not sought to defect.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Manuel said he chose to defect after the Cuban government's recent crackdown on dissidents, which included the arrests of more than 70 people in March.

"The repression of the recent months was one of the main aspects of my decision, it kind of crept into regular life," Mr. Manuel said, speaking in Spanish. "The other aspects were the bureaucracy I had to deal with to leave the island and the limits that put on my career."
Mr. Manuel, whose full name is Carlos Manuel Pruneda Macías, arrived in Brownsville on Sunday after flying from Mexico City to Monterrey, in northern Mexico, and then driving about two and a half hours to Matamoros. Mr. Manuel and his entourage were released from a holding center today in Los Fresnos, near Brownsville. The Cuban detainees had been questioned for two days by officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security.
"This is standard operating procedure in some detainee cases, and Mr. Pruneda met the requirements for release," said Art Moreno, a customs enforcement spokesman in Los Fresnos.

Under the Cuban Adjustment Act, a Cuban citizen who reaches the United States is allowed to stay after being interviewed and inspected. A year and a day after entering the United States, that person is allowed to become a permanent resident.

Mr. Manuel and his group entered the United States by walking across the bridge linking Matamoros and Brownsville. On reaching the American side of the bridge, Mr. Manuel told border patrol officials of his desire to defect. He and his group were accompanied by Mexican television journalists who were told of the defection by Hugo Cancio, Mr. Manuel's promoter in Miami. Mr. Cancio said in a telephone interview today from Los Fresnos, where he traveled to assist Mr. Manuel, that he wanted Mr. Manuel's defection to be as public as possible.
"I wanted the whole thing to go live," said Mr. Cancio, who has brought other Cuban musicians to perform in the United States. "It was a now-or-never moment that I thought was important."
Mr. Manuel is known for combining provocative lyrics with classical Cuban percussionist music and touches of Caribbean zouk and reggae. He had performed outside of Cuba on several occasions, including shows in the United States last year. In Mexico City last week, he opened for Ricardo Montaner, a Venezuelan balladeer. One of Mr. Manuel's most successful songs, "Malo Cantidad," involves word play on the cliché of women falling for consistently unfaithful men. In reviewing his career, Granma, the Cuban newspaper, once called Mr. Manuel "the good bad boy."
He was the first of his group to be released from the holding center but on leaving the building late this afternoon, he promptly walked back in after realizing that his mother, Martiza Macias Franco, 52, and his sister Yanelys Pruneda Macias, 25, had to be processed and released. The others in the group were Jorge Gabriel González Macias, 20; Juan Antonio García Delgado, 41; and Ernesto Álvarez Pérez.

The immigration holding building "resembled a resort," Mr. Manuel said minutes after his release. "It was very comfortable."
After Mr. Manuel performed last November in Miami, four members of his band defected, a move that he said weighed on him.

Mr. Cancio said he would provide Mr. Manuel and his family with a residence in Miami. There, Mr. Manuel said, he hoped to rest a little before getting back to work and promoting his new CD, "Enamora'o."

"From Miami, it will be easier to project myself internationally," Mr. Manuel said.