When Can a Death Threat Count as Persecution for Asylum?

A death threat can establish persecution, but its context must make the danger concrete

A death threat can support an asylum claim without a completed physical attack. But the words alone do not automatically establish past persecution. In Matter of E-M-F-S-, 29 I&N Dec. 379 (BIA Jan. 9, 2026), the Board required objective evidence that the threat was credible and that the person or group making it had the immediate ability to carry it out. It also required consideration of threats together with other mistreatment.

For a person preparing an asylum account, the practical question is therefore broader than whether a message used the word death. What happened before and afterward? What connects the threat to a person with the ability to act? What other conduct shows the seriousness of the danger? Those details help explain the experience without assuming that fear alone proves the legal threshold.

What the decision actually rejected

The respondents in the official decision were Peruvian media workers who reported harassment and pushing outside their workplace and two anonymous written threats at home, one accompanied by bullets. The Board did not dismiss those events as pleasant or harmless. It found that the evidence did not establish who sent the threats, their immediate ability to carry them out, or a connection making the other confrontations establish the threats’ credibility. E-M-F-S-, pages 380 and 384–86.

The Board also rejected a categorical argument that every death threat is persecution. It examined the facts of the circuit decisions invoked by the respondents and emphasized aggravating circumstances and cumulative harm. A useful account should therefore describe the complete course of mistreatment, rather than isolate one alarming sentence and leave the surrounding events unexplained.

Explain what shows the threat could be carried out

Preserve the original message, envelope, recording, or post when available. Identify the date, how it arrived, who saw it, and any reliable basis for attributing it to a particular person or group. If the sender knew a home address, work schedule, family relationship, or recent movement, explain how that knowledge was demonstrated.

Other evidence may help show capacity and intent: Prior attacks by the same people, weapons displayed during a confrontation, efforts to find the applicant, violence against a similarly situated person, or a threat followed by an approach to the home. These are examples of potentially relevant facts, not a required checklist or an invitation to speculate about an unknown sender.

A witness should distinguish personal knowledge from information learned from someone else. A police report can document what was reported and when; it does not automatically prove every reported fact or resolve whether protection was available. Explain missing evidence honestly and describe efforts to obtain it where relevant.

Connect the incidents without merging separate legal questions

A threat, assault, surveillance incident, and act of vandalism may carry more meaning together than separately. A dated account should explain what links them: The same perpetrators, repeated demands, references to earlier incidents, or a consistent target. Do not erase less severe events simply because the most serious incident is easier to describe.

Harm is only one part of asylum eligibility. The claim must also address a protected ground, the persecutor and government-protection question, and other applicable requirements. In E-M-F-S-, the Immigration Judge’s finding that threats related to imputed political opinion did not itself establish that the harm reached the persecution threshold. The reason for a threat and its severity are separate issues.

Past harm, future danger, and relocation require distinct attention

The Board separately examined future fear. It considered the absence of evidence that the alleged persecutors were still looking for the respondents, their six months in Peru after the second threat without further harm, and country evidence. It also treated the unchallenged internal-relocation finding as dispositive. E-M-F-S-, pages 386–87.

Remaining in a country for a period does not tell the entire story. Explain whether the person hid, moved, changed routines, or continued to face attempts to locate them. Those circumstances can give meaning to a timeline that otherwise appears unexplained. Likewise, explain why relocation would or would not address the identified threat, instead of relying only on a general description of national conditions.

The decision does not announce that threats can never be persecution, and the governing circuit’s law matters. A review of an asylum claim should connect the available evidence to each required issue and address any separate withholding or Convention Against Torture claim on its own terms. An account becomes stronger through accurate, relevant detail, rather than a promise that one kind of evidence guarantees relief.