Originally Posted by
exbayern
Agreed. I had a similar reply when someone asked about tourists departing the UK. There are options to leave the UK and to fly from countries not using WBI. And there are airports in the UK (perhaps even in England; definitely in Scotland and in Wales) which do not use WBI.
Like LGW, at least for now (not sure when it's supposed to change).
To the point of the OP: the US hasn't been a friendly country for tourists and other foreign nationals for quite some time now. We are one of the more difficult of the 'free' countries to get into and it shows by our tourism numbers.
Up until very recently I spent every other weekend flying between the US and the UK (as a US citizen). It took me less time to enter the UK than it did to enter the US, even as a US citizen. Granted a large part of that is because of IRIS (in the UK) and the lack of Global Entry at my home airport (CLT), but it still is ridiculous.