Abandoned cars left on streets and piled in yards have turned Ciudad Juarez into a
                 sprawling automotive graveyard, and the city wants to turn those eyesores into a
                 profit. Junk dealers started a campaign Tuesday to clear the streets and try to make
                 the city into a center for steel.

                 For years, smugglers have brought in the cheapest running vehicles they could find
                 from the Texas side of the border. There are few checks in Mexico on
                 U.S.-registered cars until drivers pass checkpoints 12 miles past the frontier --
                 something most in Ciudad Juarez, right on the border, don't have to do.

                 It's often cheaper to buy a car here than to fix one. Many people sell any valuable
                 parts after their jalopy breaks down, abandon the carcass and then buy another car.

                 The junkyard owners' union estimates 500,000 abandoned cars litter city streets --
                 enough to reach almost to Chicago if parked bumper to rusting bumper. An
                 additional 1.5 million pack junkyards.

                 With companies on both sides of the border ready to buy the scrap metal, the union
                 says it expects to tow 100 cars a day.

                 "We have enough junked cars to become a center for steel," said Hector Lozoya,
                 president of the association of junkyard owners, known as Yonkeros.

                 Even the term "yonke" is a cross-border import. In Spanish, it's often pronounced a
                 lot like "junk-ay."

                 Many of the cars are untaxed, dirt-cheap U.S. vehicles without plates that are
                 technically illegal on both sides of the border.

                 Some were bought legitimately in the United States. Others were stolen. Yonkeros
                 say they will check serial numbers and report any stolen cars they pick up.

                 Elsewhere in Mexico, legal imports are restricted, and taxes and fees push the price
                 of cars far above what it would be in the United States -- and well out of reach for
                 the poor.

                 Wages along the industrialized border are among the highest in Mexico and a
                 more-or-less running car can be had for as little as $100 -- about two weeks
                 earnings for a typical factory worker.

                 For many migrants from Mexico's impoverished south, cars are the first tangible
                 sign they are getting ahead, even as they live in shacks.

                 Angel Salazar, who left the southeastern state of Veracruz, said he never dreamed
                 he would own a car.

                 "When I was a farm worker in Veracruz, I barely made enough for bus fare," he
                 said.

                 The 19-year-old laborer lives in a hovel with 10 relatives. They have no indoor
                 plumbing, but their love for cars has led to an impromptu junkyard in the dirt lot
                 next door.

                 A dilapidated Ford Astro van stands beside the ravaged remains of their first car, a
                 Chevy Chevette, left without tires, lights, windows, a driver's seat or motor.
                 Neighbors contributed other heaps: an Oldsmobile, a Ford Fairmont, the shell of an
                 unidentifiable van.

                 "We're tired of being seen as dirtbags," said Lozoya, the yonkero chief. "We want
                 to clean up the city."

                 While 20 percent of the project's earnings will go to city beautification, the plan also
                 offers an economic opportunity for residents hit hard by the U.S. downturn after
                 September 11. More than 80,000 factory workers have lost their jobs.

                 Yonkeros will pay $30 to $100 for the old cars, depending on their condition. In
                 turn, yonkeros hope to sell enough scrap metal to equal several thousand tons of
                 steel a month.

                 Wearing a diamond ring, gold bracelet and ostrich-skin boots, Lozoya declined to
                 say how much yonkeros earn. But he said business has been good.

                 "The good thing about this business," he said, "is that the merchandise never goes
                 bad."

                  Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.