U.S. immigration authorities have made it harder for people whose asylum or withholding-of-removal claims are based on harm suffered during childhood.
After the precedential decision in Matter of I-U-V-, 29 I&N Dec. 816 (BIA 2026), the fact that harm was inflicted on a child does not automatically mean that the harm legally qualifies as persecution.
Age still matters, but it is only one factor. The court must consider severity, frequency, context, and all of the circumstances together. Most importantly, the applicant still has to prove nexus: why the harm occurred on account of political opinion, nationality, religion, race, or membership in a particular social group.
Withholding-of-removal cases present another important problem: sincere fear alone is not enough. The applicant needs objective evidence showing that the required level of danger applies specifically to that person.
1. What Matter of I-U-V- Changed
2. Asylum and Withholding of Removal
3. Facts of Matter of I-U-V-
4. Why Age Is No Longer a Decisive Factor
5. Nexus Is Required for Children Too
6. Objective Risk in Withholding of Removal
7. What This Means in Practice
8. Evidence That Matters More After I-U-V-
9. Example From Our Practice
10. Conclusion
11. Cases and Legal Authorities
At the center of this article is the BIA's decision in Matter of I-U-V-. The Board decided the case on June 1, 2026, and the decision was later designated as precedent for immigration courts nationwide.
The central holding is that harm suffered while a person was a minor does not necessarily become persecution simply because the victim was a child.
Age must be considered. But the court must also evaluate the severity of the harm, how often it happened, the context, the surrounding circumstances, and the cumulative effect.
In other words, the simplified approach — "this might not be enough for an adult, but it is enough because the applicant was a child" — can no longer substitute for a full legal analysis.
The decision arose in the context of withholding of removal, but its discussion of persecution may also matter in asylum cases because both forms of protection use the same basic concept of persecution.
In the underlying case, the immigration judge denied asylum, and no one appealed that part of the decision. The dispute before the BIA concerned withholding of removal.
Withholding of removal is governed by INA § 241(b)(3)(A) and 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A).
Unlike asylum, withholding requires a higher level of proof regarding future harm. The applicant must show that persecution is more likely than not to occur.
A personal, subjective fear is not itself a separate part of that standard. The focus is on objective evidence of future danger.
The respondent was a young man from Bashkortostan. About three months before his eighteenth birthday, during a confrontation with police, he was struck in the head twice.
He later moved from Bashkortostan to Sochi. The record also included a military summons. Instead of reporting to the military authorities, he eventually traveled to the United States and sought protection in immigration court.
There were also other, less significant incidents.
The immigration judge concluded that, taken together, the harm rose to the level of persecution because the respondent was a minor. The judge treated age as a decisive factor and granted withholding of removal.
DHS appealed.
The BIA reversed the favorable finding and remanded the case for further proceedings. The Board did not itself decide whether the respondent ultimately qualified for protection. It held that the original analysis was insufficient.
The BIA rejected the idea that minority status automatically transforms harm into persecution.
Age is important because the same event may affect a child and an adult differently. But age does not carry automatic or predetermined weight.
The court must consider the child's actual age and the full factual picture.
In I-U-V-, the respondent was only about three months away from turning eighteen. The Board therefore concluded that age could not, by itself, resolve the persecution question in his case.
The judge needed to explain separately how serious the harm was, how often it happened, the circumstances surrounding it, and why the cumulative effect rose to the level of persecution.
The second major holding is that age does not eliminate the nexus requirement.
Not every act of violence, even serious violence, qualifies as persecution under immigration law. The harm must be connected to one of the protected grounds listed in the statute.
Those grounds are race, religion, nationality, political opinion, and membership in a particular social group.
The basic refugee definition appears in 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A).
So the question is not only what happened to the child, but why it happened.
In I-U-V-, the BIA concluded that the immigration judge focused on age and severity without adequately analyzing the reason for the police conduct.
Without nexus, a favorable persecution finding cannot stand.
Another part of the decision concerns future risk in withholding-of-removal cases.
If a respondent relies on a pattern or practice of persecution against a particular group, evidence of danger to the group as a whole is not enough by itself.
The applicant must establish an objective probability that the persecution will reach him personally.
For withholding, sincere fear does not replace objective proof. Even if a person genuinely fears return, the court must still evaluate the likelihood of future harm using external evidence.
That is why, after I-U-V-, documents showing individual threats, wanted status, summonses, government interest, actions against close relatives, and similar facts become especially important in connecting general country conditions to the specific applicant.
If a case is based on harm suffered before the applicant turned eighteen, it is no longer safe to assume that the phrase "he was a child" resolves the persecution issue.
The judge must consider the applicant's specific age, the nature of each incident, physical and psychological consequences, frequency, duration, and the overall context.
This is especially important when the primary harm was psychological or indirect — for example, when a child spent years watching the government abuse or persecute the parents.
That kind of harm may still be very serious. But after I-U-V-, it has to be proven and explained in much greater detail.
Each incident also needs to be tied to a protected ground. If the reason was ordinary crime, a family dispute, or something unrelated to the five statutory grounds, age alone will not fill the gap.
First, documents proving the specific events: medical records, police reports, summonses, official decisions, messages, photographs, video, and similar evidence.
Second, witness statements from people who personally observed what happened or know why the authorities were interested in the applicant or the family.
Third, evidence of nexus. The record should show that the harm occurred because of political opinion, religion, nationality, race, or membership in a particular social group.
Fourth, expert evidence. Experts can be particularly useful when the principal harm was psychological trauma suffered as a child or when the court needs help understanding the long-term effects of events that occurred years earlier.
In withholding-of-removal cases, the applicant should also focus separately on objective future risk: why the danger still exists today and why it applies specifically to that person.
Our firm has a Russian case involving an applicant who arrived in the United States while still in school. His family fled after years of political pressure against his father and other relatives.
The father is a well-known opposition activist, former naval officer, and scientist. Since 2011, he had openly opposed the government, participated in protests, helped with Alexei Navalny's presidential campaign, published anti-government material, and spoke with Russian and Western media.
The response included searches, surveillance, detentions, interrogations, fines, job loss, and repeated police visits. One of the father's final detentions ended with hospitalization.
The child witnessed all of this. He also participated with his family in political events in Russia and abroad from a young age.
After the war began in February 2022, the father was detained for reposting a call for an anti-war protest, and the family left Russia in a hurry.
Later, through friends, the family obtained a copy of a military summons indicating that the young applicant himself was expected to report to the military authorities.
Before I-U-V-, the serious psychological trauma of a child who spent years watching his own father be persecuted could have played a much more independent role in a case like this.
After I-U-V-, that alone may no longer be enough without additional analysis.
Fortunately, this particular client also has his own political activity, both in the past and after becoming an adult. The case therefore remains strong.
But it will now require more evidence, more detailed work on each incident, and possibly experts who can connect the childhood harm to its consequences and political context.
Other applicants may have much weaker facts. If the entire case rests only on fear or violence suffered as a child, and there is no way to prove nexus or individual future risk, I-U-V- makes the case significantly harder.
Matter of I-U-V- does not say that children can no longer prove persecution.
It says something different: age does not replace the ordinary legal analysis.
The applicant must still show the severity and cumulative effect of the harm, its context, its cause, its connection to a protected ground, and — in withholding-of-removal cases — an objective probability of future persecution.
Cases based on childhood events therefore require more detailed preparation, especially where physical harm was limited, the main injury was psychological, or the danger is based on persecution of the family or a social group as a whole.
Age matters. But after I-U-V-, age alone is not enough.
Matter of I-U-V-, 29 I&N Dec. 816 (BIA 2026) — harm suffered by a minor is not necessarily persecution; age must be considered together with the totality of the harm, including severity, frequency, context, and surrounding circumstances. In withholding-of-removal cases, evidence of a pattern or practice of persecution against a group does not eliminate the need to objectively establish a clear probability of persecution of the individual respondent.
INA § 208(b)(1)(A) / 8 U.S.C. § 1158(b)(1)(A) — the principal statutory provision governing asylum.
INA § 241(b)(3)(A) / 8 U.S.C. § 1231(b)(3)(A) — protection from removal to a country where the person's life or freedom would be threatened on account of a protected ground.
8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A) — the statutory definition of a refugee and the protected grounds, including political opinion, religion, nationality, race, and membership in a particular social group.
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