MD Farid Uddin v. Todd Blanche, Acting Attorney General

Background Md Farid Uddin, a Bangladeshi native and Canadian citizen, pleaded guilty in 2019 to violating a New Jersey statute by knowingly storing or maintaining twenty-five or more items depicting the sexual exploitation of a child on a file-sharing program. Following his sentence and sex offender registration, immigration authorities initiated removal proceedings, charging him with removability for being convicted of a crime of child abuse. An immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals found him removable and denied his applications for cancellation of removal and adjustment of status. The court’s reasoning The court determined that the relevant version of the New Jersey statute is the one in effect at the time of Uddin’s conduct in 2017. Under that version, the statute criminalized storing child sexual abuse material on a file-sharing program designated as available for searching or copying by other computers. The court found that this conduct creates a reasonable probability of harm to a child because the file-sharing architecture facilitates the circulation of the material, which inflicts ongoing injury on the depicted child. The court rejected arguments that the statute was overbroad or that the harm was mitigated by the age of the participants or the nature of the images. Regarding the discretionary denials, the court held that it lacks jurisdiction to review the agency’s weighing of equities, as such determinations are committed to agency discretion. New Jersey criminalizes knowingly storing or maintaining child sexual abuse material on a file-sharing program that makes the material available for searching or copying by other computers. That conduct creates a reasonable probability that the material will circulate and injure the children depicted. MD Farid Uddin v. Todd Blanche, 24-1067 (4th Cir. June 5, 2026) What it means going forward The decision clarifies that storing child sexual abuse material on peer-to-peer networks constitutes a crime of child abuse for immigration purposes, regardless of whether the material was actually distributed. It also reinforces the jurisdictional bar preventing federal courts from reviewing discretionary immigration decisions.