A journalist couple from Peru who crossed the border into the U.S. claim the death threats they received in their home country because of their work are proof their lives were in danger.
But their most recent asylum petition was denied, and their attorney and several legal advocates say this shows how much tougher it's gotten to be granted asylum amid a steep decline in the rate of approvals.
Deyvi Soria, a former producer at a Peruvian television channel, said that in late 2022 his doorbell rang at his home in Lima and, when he opened the door, he found an envelope at his doorstep and, in the distance, he saw a man running.
"The note they left at our house said directly that we should stop speaking ill of the party and the leader (then former President Pedro Castillo), because that could cost us our lives and the lives of our families," said Soria. "And the note had no return address, and then we received a second one with three bullets," he added.
Soria produced a program on UCI TV, a Lima-based channel where he worked alongside his wife, E.M., who requested only her initials be used for fear of reprisals. E.M. was one of the program's hosts, reporting on Castillo's administration. Though the show wasn't focused on politics, it covered the corruption and conspiracy chargesthat ultimately led to an 11-year sentence for the former president.
Soria said they started seeing people come by their house and they felt very threatened, so they quit their jobs and reported the threats to the police. When they didn't receive protection from the Peruvian authorities, Soria and his wife decided to leave with their two daughters for Mexico, and from there they crossed the border into the U.S., where they were placed in removal proceedings. The couple then applied for asylum and protection under the Convention against Torture.
Last month, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), the highest administrative body for the review of immigration cases in the U.S.,analyzed the case of Soria and his wifeand dismissed their appeal for asylum, concluding that "a death threat that is vague, anonymous, or used merely to intimidate, by itself, does not rise to the level of severity required to establish persecution."
Denise Gilman,director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texasat Austin, disagreed with the BIA's ruling. "What that decision says is that having a very well-founded fear through death threats is not enough to win an asylum case," she said. "So, basically what this means is that a person has to wait to be seriously injured or even killed to qualify for asylum."
International organizations have warned that Latin America remains the deadliest region for the press outside of war zones. In itsmost recent report, Reporters Without Borders counted the murder of 17 reporters in 2025 alone.
In Peru, theNational Association of Journalistsrecorded 458 attacks against the press last year, including the murder of three reporters, something that had not happened since 2016 and that was common in the '90s during the armed conflict against the Shining Path terrorist group.
"Our fear is that something might happen to us if we return, because right now Peru is one of the most unsafe countries in Latin America. If you felt somewhat safe before, you don't anymore, because before they threatened you, but now they're killing you," Soria said, "and now the court here tells us that death threats aren't enough."
A denial and an appeal
When Soria and his family first sought asylum, their case was heard in an immigration court in Miami in 2024. The judge acknowledged that the threats were linked to Soria's political opinion as a journalist critical of the government, the family's attorney, Bradley Westerhold, said.
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However, the immigration judge concluded that the threats did not reach the level of past persecution and denied the family's asylum application.
Westerhold then appealed the couple's case to the BIA, asking the board to adopt a more protective line, like that of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit,which has recognized that death threats, on their own, can constitute stalkingin certain circumstances.
The board, however, took a more restrictive interpretation, in line with other courts, and held that threats "rarely" constitute stalking if there is no evidence that the aggressor had an "immediate capacity" to carry them out.
Westerhold thinks the ruling sends a dangerous signal. "It doesn't mean that threat cases can never be approved," he says. "But now the threats have to be connected to more serious physical harm, or there has to be something more than just the threat itself."
Noticias Telemundo requested comments on the decision from the Department of Homeland Security and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, which referred the request to the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), an agency of the Department of Justice.
In response, EOIR spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly stated in an email that the agency does not comment on decisions, but added that immigration judges "consider all evidence and arguments presented by both parties and decide each case in a timely, impartial, and lawful manner."
Soria's attorney is filing a request to review the case with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
TheTRAC data centerat Syracuse University estimates that the monthly asylum approval rate in courts fell to 19.2% in August 2025 — a drop of nearly half compared to a 38.2% approval rate in August 2024. Areport by the Congressional Research Service,also based on official data, goes further and estimates that the annual asylum approval rate in immigration courts in fiscal year 2025 is only 12%.
The backlog in U.S. immigration courts has reached record highs, withmore than 3.7 million cases pending.Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services,announced last Novemberthat he had decided to suspend "all asylum decisions until we can ensure that all foreign nationals are investigated and vetted to the fullest extent possible."
Jennifer Bade, an immigration lawyer based in Boston, Massachusetts, often represents cases like that of the Soria family. She said people who receive threats don't usually wait to see what will happen to them in their countries, but rather go to the authorities and in many cases, when they see that they don't receive answers or protection, they decide to go into exile.
"My main problem with this case is that who in their right mind would wait to see if the threat is credible, when there are already people who have received similar threats and then died ... Everyone would be in survival mode and would want to leave. So, I think this decision is quite harsh," Bade said.
The lawyer said the decision "is going to make cases like this or similar situations much more difficult, especially for those people for whom it is not safe to return to their countries of origin."
An earlier version of this story was first published in Noticias Telemundo.
