World xc is in March, with qualifying at USA meet in January, whereas meet you are referring to is the us club xc champs, which is in December. In fact, it's usually same weekend as footlocker, next weekend.
The club xc event does have pros, mostly second tier, running with their club team. The 2019 event was won by ny/Stanford star Aisling Cuffe w/ Tuohy 2nd. The 2019 meet happened to be at Lehigh, which is 1 hour from Rockland and gave kt a chance to run a 6k xc meet, while she was still fit only 1 week after nxn.
Generally speaking, and I dont include Touhy on this list (may have been injured at this point this year?), but I feel some top USA U20 runners avoid World Championship and other international events due to mandatory USADA drug testing at the qualifiers and then very possible random WADA drug testing after being named to the team until the event is complete.
Outside of these events most all USA U20 runners are never tested, so its not worth the risk to go when there are so many other "expenses paid" opportunities for Americans that dont drug test at all (i.e. Brooks PR, Champs, NXN, Addidas Dream, etc.). Other countries dont have those options so all the best runners go through there national associations and the free travel to worlds.