Md Uddin v. Todd Blanche

── Md Uddin v. Todd Blanche ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Date: June 05, 2026 Category: General USCA4 Appeal: 24-1067 Doc: 83 Filed: 06/05/2026 Pg: 1 of 14 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 24-1067 MD FARID UDDIN, Petitioner, v. TODD BLANCHE, Acting Attorney General, Respondent. On Petition for Review of an Order of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Argued: March 19, 2026 Decided: June 5, 2026 Before WILKINSON, RICHARDSON, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges. Petition denied in part and dismissed in part by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judges Wilkinson and Heytens joined. ARGUED: Jackson Erpenbach, HECKER FINK LLP, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Imran Raza Zaidi, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. ON BRIEF: Joshua A. Matz, HECKER FINK LLP, Washington, D.C., for Petitioner. Brett A. Shumate, Assistant Attorney General, Lindsay B. Glauner, Melissa K. Lott, Office of Immigration Litigation, Civil Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Respondent. USCA4 Appeal: 24-1067 Doc: 83 Filed: 06/05/2026 Pg: 2 of 14 RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge: 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. So the offense categorically qualifies as a crime of child abuse under the Immigration and Nationality Act. I. BACKGROUND Md Farid Uddin, a Bangladeshi native and Canadian citizen, was a lawful permanent resident living in New Jersey. In 2018, he was indicted for distributing, storing, and possessing sexually explicit images of children in violation of New Jersey law. In 2019, he pleaded guilty to one count under N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:24-4(b)(5)(a)(iii): Between August 1, 2017, and November 2, 2017, he “knowingly store[d] or maintain[ed] . . . twenty-five (25) or more items depicting the sexual exploitation or abuse of a child . . . using a file-sharing program which was designated as available for searching by or copying to one or more other computers.” J.A. 303. Uddin was sentenced and required to register as a sex offender. After Uddin served his sentence, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him in Pennsylvania, and the Department of Homeland Security initiated removal proceedings. The government charged Uddin with removability under the Immigration 2 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1067 Doc: 83 Filed: 06/05/2026 Pg: 3 of 14 and Nationality Act for (1) an “aggravated felony,” specifically the “sexual abuse of a minor,” 1 and (2) “a crime of child abuse, child neglect, or child abandonment.” 2 An immigration judge in Richmond, Virginia, found him removable because his statute of conviction categorically matched a crime of child abuse. The IJ also denied Uddin’s applications for cancellation of removal 3 and adjustment of status with a waiver of inadmissibility 4 “as a matter of discretion.” J.A. 56. Uddin appealed, contesting the IJ’s removability finding and the IJ’s discretionary denials of his applications. The Board of Immigration Appeals issued its own opinion affirming removability and adop