[LadyDoc]

background facts: if you travel to Canada via the USA, you need to have a visa if your connecting flight goes through a US airport. Our granddaughter had to change flights when they discovered she didn't have one (she is Filipina). But I don't know if they are this strict with Australians.

However, if you act suspiciously, they will keep you in a transit lounge.

Maybe she has abortion drugs with her in her luggage or handbag? But usually they only check your luggage or handbag is you are acting suspiciously, as if you are smuggling drugs.

[Jim Noble]

But big airports like LAX have a “sterile” international area where passengers in transit can go to their departing flights without entering the USA.

This is standard operating procedure all over the world - in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Rome, the Gulf - everybody has an international transit area.

Except Dublin. When my daughter was flying Hamburg-Dublin-Bordeaux, returning from vacation to her job in France, she had to enter Ireland to get her flight to Bordeaux. I had given her a Streamlight flashlight with a rail attachment (but no rifle) for her stay in France, she brought it with her to Germany, but the Border Force in Ireland detained her because rail mounts are not permitted and they wanted to know where the rifle was.