Originally Posted by
Badenoch
America doesn't do departure checks. The problem for Americans is attempting to return to the United States without the proper documents. The card works for land travel but not for air under the WHTI.
The US does have a mandate to do electronic departure checks for all scheduled common carrier flights and that is the routine for the US now. We also do some physical gate-area/jet-bridge departure checks (primarily for customs-related functions).
The card does work for air travel for those who can manage to get boarded on a flight to the US; but the main problem is to get a US-flying airline to allow boarding without a passport. US CBP accepts passport cards as proof of identity/citizenship and what is proof of citizenship/identity for the USG in one kind of POE context is proof of identity/citizenship even for other USG contexts.