Pretty much a cottage industry in parts of the country.
I heard stories and knew girls who specifically married guys from Venezuela, Lebanan etc who knew that it was a scam. In those days, just being married a year was enough to get the guy a green card.
However, new rules necessitate you cannot be a citizen if you divorce before 5 years, IIRC.
Of course, says nothing about residing together...hence a loophole wide enough to drive an SUV through.
A billion years ago, I worked with a girl my age at the time who married a Greek for $500 (a month’s wages in the 1970s). We all joked about it, but who knew it would become the cottage industry that it is. In any case, she saw him once (for the “wedding”), the check changed hands, she never saw him again, and at the appropriate time, the divorce went through.
Still, the woman I knew in the 90s didn’t marry this Muslim loser for the money. She had spent some time studying in Germany, where she specialized in dating people from the ME because she thought it would annoy her parents, who were solid Mid-Westerners.
She then decided that the thing to do was marry one of them. He was always back in wherever (I think he was actually a “Palestinian”) and she was in Jersey City working and bringing up their child. He came back and gambled her money away every so often and then went away. And his mother hated her.
These girls are so dumb.