Exactly My company transferred to the US, and I went over for a year on a company transfer visa. I was paid competitively and paid taxes in the US. After a year the company started green card applications for those who wanted it. If they hadn't then in a few years, the staff with the most experience and knowledge of the software would have had to leave the company to return home, and the company would have been in considerable trouble - generating less tax and with less chance of hiring more US workers. I assume they had to advertise the jobs as part of the green card process. They certainly didn't want to replace us, not because they were getting cheap labour, but because they had a set of trained staff who were the core of the company.