Why do U.S. international airports lack ‘sterile’ international connections areas that don’t require you to clear U.S. customs in order to connect on an international flight, like airports in many other countries have?

Question

Why do U.S. international airports lack ‘sterile’ international connections areas that don’t require you to clear U.S. customs in order to connect on an international flight, like airports in many other countries have?

In: Other

Answer 1

Simply put, the US explicitly disallows them because of national security concerns. It’s also not a thing that the airports will really lobby against. The US is kind of a big country. If your flight would be something like Santiago Chile-> LAX -> Tokyo, you don’t have a lot of other options that aren’t going to be massively out of your way. Comparatively, if someone was flying Australia -> UK via Dubai, well they could instead connect in any dozen of countries along the way if Dubai suddenly made the process harder, and Emirates might have a problem with this because some of their popular routes depend on relaying people from A to B via Dubai. It’s also not a very uncommon thing. Canada, the Schengen Zone, the UK, ~~and Aus~~ all have similar policies.