Why?

And if there exists an important reason to know that someone is exiting the country does that same criterion not also apply to exiting a state or city or neighborhood?

I am not being sarcastic; I am genuinely unable to come up with a reason it's important to track who leaves almost any place, except in highly unusual cases (e.g. "OK guys, chatmasta has gone; let's get to work planning the surprise party for when he gets back")

The airlines are giving out all the information, that's why there is no need to do an exit passport control.

From the US? I can't think of any outgoing passport control at all; not by land in a private vehicle, nor by boat.

So France has basically no idea who shows up from Germany or leaves via Belgium. The countries on the external borders are supposed to handle all that.

Now I suppose it's possible there is a lot of data exchanged in real time and so on, but it's also possible that is a complete mess and nobody really knows anything, especially about citizens (GDPR).

I have not crossed that many non-Schengen land borders, but as far as I remember it was the same every time, when going from France to England through the channel, Belgium to England by train, France to Switzerland (before Switzerland joined Schengen) and Canada to the US.

I have been to a few airports where you explicitly clear US customs at the departing airport before leaving for the US — Vancouver, BC and Dublin Shannon come to mind.

If you've overstayed your automatic 90-day Schengen area travel visa, a common hack for backpackers and such is to intentionally leave the Schengen area from someplace like France that's generally less strict about counting exact days than many other EU countries.

To be fair, I don't have much experience flying from the Schengen area to non-Schengen area non-US countries. It's totally possible this is all rigamarole that the US government pressures other countries to do.

I have heard of friends of friends who overstayed a visa and get found out on the exit gate (usually bringing a lawyer/embassy official to talk through things). This can lead to a (temporary?) travel ban to Germany and a fine.

And those maximum visit lengths are counted on an annual basis. So you can only visit the US 179 days out of 365.

So they need to know when you came in and when you left. It's not good enough to just leave and not tell anyone.

But institutions like governments only “see” via data collection, and in general are happy to collect whatever is technically and socially feasible, and people involved in setting up databases seldom stop to think about the risks or trade-offs involved in collecting various types of data, or whether that data is meaningful or useful. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...

Staying for more than six months is usually one of the main measures to determine if one is resident and should pay taxes in the country, so there is at least a very good reason (although I don't know how much this applies to the USA specifically).

Finding people who rob banks at some point and punishing them is of great interest to people fearful of robbers who like disrupting robbers’ lives for no practical purpose because they gain sadistic satisfaction from cruelly exercising power over other people.

You punish a robber ostensibly to stop them from robbing again, lest you end up the victim of a robbery. What does being the victim of someone's unlawful presence even mean?

There is nothing unique about the US in that regard. Most countries have a limit on how long you can visit.

This isn't always a good thing, of course, as there's less due process involved in handling such situations. Unlawful entry is a misdemeanor, lying to a border guard is a crime, and unlawful re-entry after deportation can be, also.

[1] https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2017/mar/15/fl...

I think your "who is hurt" approach is weak though.

If a country can't enforce its own laws - or worse selectively enforces them - no one is obviously "hurt" but it erodes trust in the systems and process itself. It leaves everything up to the judgement of the people on the ground and damages the concept of equality under the law. It's a dangerous game to play.

I was suggesting one has a clear victim and the other doesn't so it may not be directly comparable. The "who's hurt" question was something I'm curious the consensus answer to rather than an excuse for not enforcing the law.

Not saying one way or another, but the argument is that ICE was only formed 16 years ago and that the U.S. was not 'overrun' before then. The Border Patrol etc. would still remain, just the Stasi-like tactics of removing people from their homes in the middle of the night and holding people in cages would disappear.

At least that's how I've heard the argument.

Saying "only formed 16 years ago" is only right among the "well, actually" crowd.

The difference in 'effectiveness' is sort of like the difference between the reach of the LAPD intelligence arm vs the CIA.

I believe the US exit controls are currently based on airline passenger manifests (not entry databases of other countries).

Also de facto limitations in highly violent places like Syria, parts of Iraq, Somalia et al, but I assume you were referring to a de jure right

With this development of technology, it becomes possible to even check who is crossing your neighborhood, and you may lose your freedom inside your own country, if a government decided to go in that direction

Obviously a great country to emulate.

This happened to me leaving London and it was a lot of fuss over nothing. I (American) had given my forwarding travel plans to the border agent upon arrival and I didn't notice but she marked my passport with a visa for an exact stay (just the weekend). Except she mistakenly wrote my exit date a day early. It took quite a bit of explaining to convince them not to put a giant "DEPORTED" stamp in my passport and even though they eventually believed me that it was a clerical mistake they definitely kept track in their system because I was questioned about it several months later when I went to the Falkland Islands.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Anyway, I think facial recognition makes sense from a security perspective, as an additional layer of defense. You can make assumptions about what faces you expect to see from the passports that are scheduled to fly. If you see an unknown face in the boarding area, it's reasonable to flag that person for further review.

*US citizens flying within the states.

- Hannibal Buress

Casual article on it: https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/how-to-get-on-a-pla...

ADDED: It appears that as of Oct 1 2020, this sort of exception will no longer be possible.

It doesn't explicitly say "no exceptions" but the plain text is certainly that you will need appropriate ID (Real ID/passport/etc.) to go through TSA when Real ID requirement fully kicks in.

The inspection is not a big deal and they are prepared for this situation. It’s a shame that the laws that control this are classified (cf Gilmore v Gonzalez) so we can’t know what the actual rules are.

It’s a “solution” in search of a problem.