In KC v. Garland, ____ F.4th ____ (2d Cir. 2024), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit addressed whether death threats are sufficient to establish that an asylum applicant has faced past persecution. In a unanimous opinion authored by Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan and joined by Chief Judge Debra Ann Livingston and Senior Circuit Judge José Cabranes, the Second Circuit rejected a per se rule that an asylum applicant who has received death threats has demonstrated past persecution. Instead, in line with prior Second Circuit precedent, death threats "will constitute past persecution only if the applicant can point to aggravating circumstances indicating that the death threat was 'so imminent or concrete' or 'so menacing as itself to cause actual suffering or harm.'" 2024 WL 3433555 at *4 (quoting Scarlett v. Barr, 957 F.3d 316, 328 (2d Cir. 2020)). Going forward, it will behoove asylum applicants and their counsel to present evidence of these aggravating circumstances when seeking asylum.