It is a common myth. What we did in those days was choose rescues and personally investigate them, then I would market the dogs who were out of time at the shelters to find them a place at a rescue.
It cost us about $150 for each small dog and several more hundred for the larger ones to get them all the necessary paperwork and on the transports.
We sent dogs to lots of nonkill shelters in Portland and Seattle, and to rescue groups from Portland to Vancouver Island.
When I had a border collie in need I had a woman I loved in central Oregon who would take them, and I could make arrangements with the transport to have them dropped off there. Jack Russells, etc. I had a serious network in place. We saved many thousands of lives.
Some of the high kill shelters in LA are horrid and dogs would get sick with kennel cough kinds of things. But since the transports only ran on certain days I had to have someone pull them for me and board them until the transport picked them up. I boarded at a vet clinic in Anaheim. They probably still remember me.
Only once did I send them a seriously sick dog, a small chi who arrived there with a dental abcsess. I knew about that...they did the surgery but he never really got better. So we did some lab work and found out he had leukemia. He never made it on a transport north and cost me $700 to pull, board, and treat, then euth.
It's very expensive. And after medical things, there are behavioral issues. Many shelter dogs in LA were highly adoptable but some were there for a good reason. I took them to a behavioralist when they were bitey and gave them 3-4 months of working with them. If they could not show improvement, I PTS.
Sure there are unethical rescues - we all knew about them and shared about them. The mainstream folk are good people however, no matter what country they are pulling them from. I looked up customs requirements and could not find any for dogs from Taiwan so it seems as if they rescue we worked with was just doing it right. Because our fosters and the one we kept were tested for every tickborne disease, heartworms, etc. before getting on the plane.
All dogs deserve a chance at a life. God Bless those people who have picked up where we left off.
Where you are is obviously a much better place than many others.