As we all learned in high school, Congress makes laws and the president puts them into effect. The constitutional boundary between enact and implement is hazy, just as the Framers intended. They had lived under George III and didn’t want another king. They had seen the flaws of the Articles of Confederation, which created a weak Congress and no executive or judiciary at all.

The new Constitution they drafted included checks and balances among three separate branches to prevent tyranny. Congress’s power to tax and spend, by implication, allows it oversight over practically everything. In foreign affairs, the Constitution empowers Congress to declare war, regulate foreign commerce, levy tariffs, and raise, support, and regulate an army and navy.

Over the past century, power has shifted from Congress to the president. Congress hasn’t declared war since World War II; instead, it authorizes presidents to use military force against particular threats. Formal treaties have largely been replaced by executive agreements that don’t require the Senate’s advice and consent. Since the 1930s, Congress has given the president ever-growing power to set and negotiate tariffs.

Has Congress abdicated its role of oversight, checks, and balances? It repeatedly delegates authority to the executive. It leaves executive orders unchallenged. It confirms partisan nominees to head independent agencies. Congress has the means to reclaim some of the power it has ceded. Maybe someday it will have the will. 

Nearly ninety years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the president is “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations,” wielding an exclusive power “which does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress but which, of course, like every other governmental power, must be exercised in subordination to the applicable provisions of the Constitution.” (United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp., 1936).

It unnerves me to think I could be detained and deported any time someone in the executive branch, unfettered in foreign affairs, decides one of my blog posts threatens current U.S. international policy. It’s unlikely to happen soon. I am a white, straight, cis, native-English-speaking, American-born daughter of two naturalized immigrants. Still, if it can happen to one U.S. citizen or legal resident, it can happen to any of us. More likely, first I’ll lose access to email and social media on the grounds that my words endanger national security.

Under the Constitution, the president is commander in chief. It authorizes him to make treaties and appoint ambassadors, with advice and consent of the Senate. Congress may delegate other powers to him, but according to Curtiss-Wright, in international affairs he can act without delegation from Congress. The only guardrails appear to be those in the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution. May those guardrails be strong enough to save us from crashing off the cliff.

On Inauguration Day in 2025, the new president signed an executive order to suspend refugee admissions to the U.S. It allowed for exceptions by the secretaries of State and Homeland Security “so long as they determine that the entry of such aliens as refugees is in the national interest and does not pose a threat to the security or welfare of the United States.”

Two-and-a-half weeks later, the White House cut off aid to South Africa to protest its land reform law and its disagreement with U.S. foreign policy. That order also stated, “the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.”

Afrikaners are descended from early Boer (Dutch for “farmer”) settlers of Cape Colony in southern Africa, founded by the Dutch East India Company in 1652. “Trekboers” migrated inland with their herds. Conflict among Afrikaners, British colonists, and the indigenous Zulu—especially after the discovery of diamonds and gold—led to creation of the apartheid Union of South Africa and eventually to democratic elections. White South Africans, the majority of whom are Afrikaners, make up 7.3 percent of the population and own three-fourths of the privately held land. More than four out of five South Africans are black.

Afrikaners don’t much threaten American security or welfare. Nor do Afghans trying to escape Taliban reprisal for helping the U.S. military, nor families from Honduras or El Salvador threatened by gang violence and extortion. What measures the national interest? Given the administration’s vehement rejection of “racial preferences,” its preference for Afrikaners over desperate fugitives fleeing for their lives is hard to explain.

Image: Trekboers making camp, aquatint by Samuel Daniell, c. 1804. 

Yellow isn’t exactly my favorite color. I might not choose it for a car, a coat, or a barn. But it’s my most personal color, and I love it for dots and accents. In my family of origin, anything that was color-coded—from croquet balls to plastic breakfast juice cups—was red for my father, green for my mother, blue for my brother, and yellow for me. I still choose Colonel Mustard in Clue, yellow tokens in Parcheesi, and yellow sticky-notes and suspension folders at my desk. Synesthesia takes hold. It feels natural that sun and stars begin with my initial, S.

Pale yellows of forsythia and daffodils bloom in the garden, and wood poppies under the trees. Male goldfinches at the feeder have traded in their winter drab for bright yellow plumage. Savoring these markers of spring (another S), I don’t like “yellow-bellied” or “yellow stripe down the back” to denote cowardice. Despite lots of speculation online, the origin of those terms is unknown. I’d rather see yellow suggest courage, like a bold dandelion pushing through a crack in the sidewalk.

My ninth-grade English teacher, Mrs. Swisher, drummed into us that courage isn’t when you’re fearless; it’s when your will is stronger than your fear. It’s spunk, spine, spirit, and strength. Its seeds can spread. A senator risks being primaried to admit, “We are all afraid.” A school risks loss of funding to defend its academic freedom. With luck the sun shines, the breeze blows, and a second dandelion pushes up. In time, brave voices could fill the streets and airwaves, the way a zillion dandelions will turn whole cow pastures yellow.