What is the test of refugee status in the United States?

The applicants' submissions suggests that where an applicant has not returned to his or her country of origin, the test of refugee status is one of country conditions since there cannot have been new instances of persecution if the applicant did not return home. This amounts to saying that all that an applicant need show is an objective basis for a fear of persecution. But since the definition of convention refugee has a subjective and an objective component, (A.G. Canada v. Ward, 1993 CanLII 105 (SCC), [1993] 2 S.C.R. 689) a determination that a person was a refugee on the strength of evidence of objective conditions alone would do away with the subjective element of the definition. It would be an anomalous result if persons making their first claim for refugee status had to show both a subjective and an objective basis for their well founded fear of persecution, but after a 90 days sojourn in the United States, they could succeed in their second claim by showing only an objective basis for fearing persecution.