Who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
Thus, to be granted asylum, aliens must prove either that they've been persecuted, or have a "Well-founded fear of persecution", on account of one or more of those five statutory "Factors": race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.
To establish past persecution, applicants must show by a preponderance of the evidence that they were persecuted in the past, but what's "a well-founded fear of persecution" and how does an applicant prove harm could occur in the future?
Where a person has not demonstrated past persecution, he or she may still show a good reason to fear future persecution by adducing credible, direct, and specific evidence in the record of facts that would support a reasonable fear of persecution.
A well-founded fear does not require certainty of persecution or even a probability of persecution.
Central to this determination is persecution, but unfortunately that term is not defined in the INA. That said, again, there is a rich body of asylum case law discussing and explaining it.
That said, applicants do allege that incarceration following criminal trials constitutes persecution, which leads me to a concept in asylum law known as "Pretextual prosecution".
https://cis.org/Arthur/Political-Prosecutions-and-US-Asylum-Law
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